Of Wolf And Man
by Ferret2
Summary: [COMPLETE] Sam & Dean are back in Manning, Colorado to investigate a series of strange murders that show signs of foul play from vampires & werewolves. Then Sam's visions begin acting up and Dean must fight to save his brother, and the future of the world
1. Psychobabble

**Chapter 1: Psychobabble**

Dean swallowed down a mouthful of mashed potatoes. "Okay, so how about this one?" he asked Sam, pointing to an article in the newspaper. "Nova Scotia, Canada. People are mysteriously falling ill. Doctors blame it on Canadian flu, except all the victims are middle-aged men." 

Sam arched an eyebrow. "_Canadian_ flu?" he scoffed. 

"Yeah," Dean said. "It's like the American flu. Only colder." He grinned as he stabbed a sausage off Sam's plate. 

"Be serious," Sam said. He rolled his eyes and continued to scour the Internet for any potential gigs. Just as he was reaching for his beer, a very curious homicide article from Manning, Colorado caught his eye. "Dean," he said, turning the laptop to face his brother. 

Dean skimmed the article before him. "Third case of this kind _this week_, wow… people being brutally killed… left for dead in nearby forest… completely naked…" he looked up. "Sam this isn't our kind of problem. They've probably just got some horny Freddy Kreuger wanna-be running around." 

"No, look at this," Sam said as he pulled up another window. "Abel Schmidt. He's the one who got killed, and look at what happened to him a year ago." Dean looked at the article as Sam spoke. "He and his buddies got lost in the woods, but they were found five days later taking shelter in a wolf's den." 

Dean blinked and said slowly, "Yeah, I guess it sucks he survived that only to get sliced and diced in the same damn forest again." 

"Dean, that's not the point." Sam stopped talking as a waitress walked past their table, smiling shyly at them. When she was gone, he lowered his voice and leaned closer to Dean. "What do you know about werewolves?" 

It was Dean's turn to quirk an eyebrow. "Uh… they're hairy, silver bullet to the heart is the only thing that'll kill 'em, and they piss purple," he said as Sam flipped through their dad's journal. 

"Look," Sam said, pointing to the page he had open. "One of the ways you can become a werewolf is if you drink water from the paw print of a wolf, then eat the brains of a wolf and then sleep in a wolf's lair." 

"Dude, if you can stomach wolf brains, you can become whatever the hell you want as far as I'm concerned," Dean said. 

Sam ignored that as he flipped to the next page and turned the journal to face Dean. "And look here. When you kill a werewolf when it's in wolf form, it'll revert back into its human form. That's why all the victims are naked. _And_," Sam said, pulling up a weather website, "there was a full moon the night Abel Schmidt died." 

"But a silver bullet to the heart is the only thing that can kill a werewolf," Dean countered. "And this says our buddy Abel here was mauled, and there's nothing here about a gunshot wound, so he can't be a werewolf." 

Sam frowned. Dean was right. With a sigh, Sam closed the page and continued to search the Internet as Dean continued to read through various newspapers. 

By the time the boys finished eating their dinner, they still hadn't found anything to hunt, but they were not dismayed. Tomorrow would be a new day with new problems and new gigs. 

x x x

  
Dean shifted from one foot to the other as he stood in front of the coffee maker in their motel room, watching as his coffee fell drop by drop with small splashes into the large pot below. He sniffed the air, inhaling the welcome scent. 

_Taster's Choice_, he thought to himself. _Damn straight._

He reached into the cupboard above and pulled out two coffee mugs, lining them up before the coffee maker. He kneeled down to make sure the mugs were angled identically. After slightly shifting the mug on the right, he straightened again, pleased. 

He checked on the coffee maker once more, but the pot wasn't even halfway full. 

Dean could hear movement behind him, meaning Sam was awake. 

Sam yawned, then saw his brother staring intently at the coffee maker. "Dean, you know that would go a lot faster if you'd quit staring at it, right?" 

Dean turned around, a look of annoyance on his face. The nerve of Sam to criticize this sacred morning ritual! 

"I think I know how to make coffee, thanks. And it's not going to brew faster if I quit looking at it—" 

All of the sudden, the coffee maker began to make a gurgling noise, and Dean whipped his head around to discover that the coffee was finished. 

"Don't even—!" Dean began to say. 

"Told ya," Sam smirked impishly. 

Dean glowered as he poured the coffee into the mugs before him. "Just come get your coffee." 

"I'll pass," Sam replied, looking through the newspaper on the bedside table. 

"Why?" Dean demanded, placing his hands on his hips as he turned to look at his brother. 

"Because I don't feel like drinking coffee right now," Sam said, putting the newspaper down as he got out of bed. "What's so wrong with that? Quit staring!" 

"You don't feel like drinking coffee?" Dean gawked. "How can you even say that?" 

"I dunno, I think I caught something at the diner yesterday. I feel like crap." He used his hand to rub his head and blinked a few times to clear his vision. "Man, do we have any aspirin?" Sam groaned. He thought he was going to vomit. He stumbled toward the bathroom, but before he could take hardly two steps, the bathroom door began to wobble. Then the doorframe seemed to have jumped right out of the wall. And then there was Dean, dropping the spoon he'd been holding and running toward him—did he always run in zigzags like that? 

And then there was pain. 

The pain consumed his whole body, but mostly his head. It was dancing and screaming, and Sam screamed right along with it until he couldn't hear the screaming anymore and he couldn't see the bathroom door or the doorframe or even Dean, who had just been shaking his shoulders. 

No, Sam was in a forest now. A very quiet forest with no screaming. It was dark outside, and there was no moon in the sky. He could smell the wet bark and leaves and all the other ugly yet beautiful smells that all of true nature has to offer. Then he heard a voice behind him. When he turned to see who it was, even in this dream, this dream of a dream, Sam was shocked. 

It was Abel Schmidt who stood before him, and he was very alive. 

Abel was a tall young man with dark curly hair and tan features, which was quite obvious since he wasn't wearing any clothes. He had just finished drawing two circles on the ground—one small circle inside a larger circle. At the center of both circles stood a wooden tripod, from which an iron pot hung, filled with water. Under the pot was a blazing fire, which boiled the water. 

Then Sam was suddenly standing closer to Abel, who was hunched over a very old book that lay flat and open on the ground. Next to the book were a variety of plants, placed in an organized fashion on top of what looked like animal skin. 

Abel gathered the plants in his arms and walked over to the pot of water. He placed a handful of each of the ingredients into the pot, saying their names aloud. "Aloe, hemlock, poppy seed, nightshade." 

The water inside the pot suddenly began to swirl of its own accord, and Abel smiled a bit before stepping out of the circle. He threw his hands up in the air and screamed at the sky as tears of joy and excitement streamed down his face. "Spirits of the restless! Spirits of the dead! Spirits of the foul darkness! Spirits of the hateful! Spirits of the satyrs! Spirits of the werewolves! I call upon you! Take me as your humble slave, make me yours, and bring me—" Abel choked on his words as he doubled over in pain. He crawled back to the animal skin and reached into a small container, which held something slimy. 

Sam automatically seemed to know it was a mixture of animal fat, anise, camphor, and opium. 

Once Abel had covered his whole body with the mixture, he wrapped the animal skin around his middle like a loincloth and crawled back to the edge of the outer circle. "Spirits!" Abel yelled. "Take me!" 

And all of the sudden, Abel's body began to convulse in every way possible. One moment he had the snout of a wolf, then one of his legs would turn into that of a dog's, then one of his hands would turn into a horse's hoof, and the transformations went on and on like this until they began to slow and a final form took shape. 

But without warning, the forest was swirling out of view, a dim light was replacing the darkness, and suddenly Sam realized that the dim light was actually Dean's face. And then the pain came crashing back. With one final scream of anguish, Sam collapsed onto Dean, breathing heavily, sweating profusely, and trembling just slightly. 

Dean awkwardly dragged his brother's lanky body to one of the beds and set him there. It took a moment before Sam could sit up on his own, but Dean waited patiently at his side. 

Once his head had stopped spinning and his breathing had returned to normal, Sam recounted the things he had just seen, and then his eyes widened when realization dawned on him. "Abel Schmidt is alive," he whispered. 

Dean pulled a face, but before he could ask questions, Sam continued. "Abel Schmidt is alive, and he's a werewolf." 

Sam sat on his hands to try and make them stop trembling as he recounted his vision to Dean, and Dean seemed frozen as he let Sam's words sink in. 

"Sam, it doesn't make any sense," Dean said. He got up and turned away from his brother and added, "Nothing can bring the dead back to life." 

Sam pursed his lips together. "Dean, I know what I saw. Abel Schmidt must not have died or something. But he _is_ alive. I saw it. He's alive, and he turned himself into a werewolf." 

Dean spun around, his arms crossed over his chest. His forehead was creased with concentration. "This is in Manning, Colorado, right?" 

"Yeah. We've got to go there. Something's not right, Dean." 

"I know," Dean agreed. "But that's not what's got me worried." 

Sam looked confused. 

"Manning, Colorado, Sammy!" Dean almost shouted. "It's where the vampires are located, too, don't you remember?" 

"And they've got our scent," Sam muttered. Then his eyes suddenly lit up. "Wait!" He swiftly walked out the door, which surprised Dean. It seemed the more visions Sam had, the more painful they became, but the better Sam learned to handle the strain involved with one of his episodes. 

From the squeaking sounds Dean heard outside, he could tell Sam was getting something from the trunk. When he returned, Sam held a small black bag in his hand. He reached into it and took out a silver bullet, then applied pressure to the middle, which made it pop open. They were supposed to be do-it-yourself silver bullets, of sorts, but Sam had another idea. "We can fill these silver bullet capsules with a dead man's blood. That way we'll be ready for both the vampires and the werewolves." 

"Nice." Dean smirked. "Y'know, I think you still got it in you, kid." 

Sam narrowed his eyes. "_It_ never left me." 

The boys spent all of ten minutes packing their belongings, checking out of the motel, then loading into the Impala so that they could start their trip toward Manning, Colorado. 

x x x

  
"Nosferatuuu!" Dean sang aloud, holding out the last syllable of the Blue Oyster Cult song. 

Sam slumped miserably in his seat, groaning at Dean's annoying singing. "Are we there yet?" he asked again just so his voice could block out a tiny fraction of the noise coming out of the radio. 

"Seventeenth time's a charm," Dean said, grinning. 

Sam sat up and looked out the window in time to watch as they drove past the Manning, Colorado city limits sign. A couple minutes later, Dean was pulling up to a relatively small, quiet white building that was situated away from everything else in town. The small black letters on the sign before them read: FUNERAL HOME. 

Before they got out of the car, Dean pulled open the glove compartment and began rummaging through his stash of fake IDs before he found the pair he was looking for. "We're FBI agents," he told Sam. 

"I know," Sam said as he snatched his badge out of Dean's hand. Once he'd gotten out of the car, Sam flipped it open, but immediately closed it when he eyed his profile. "Dean, this thing says I'm female!" 

"Your point?" Dean asked with a blank face. He was at the trunk, placing a couple empty bottles into the pockets inside his jacket. 

"Dean!" Sam hissed as his brother closed the trunk. 

Dean was already walking toward the entrance. "They won't even look at it, Sammy," he said. 

"Because you've been right about that one so many times before," Sam muttered to himself. 

"Heard that," Dean shouted over his shoulder. 

Sam sulked as he took long strides to catch up to his brother. 

Compared to its white paint job, the inside of the funeral home was completely different. The walls were painted a deep burgundy color, black curtains covered all the windows, and despite the many light bulbs present, the lighting in the room wasn't very well distributed. 

At the front desk sat a dark middle-aged man who was finishing up some paperwork. "Be right with you," he called out in his burly voice. When he finished writing, he gathered his papers and turned to file them in a filing cabinet behind him. "What can I do you for?" 

Sam flinched a bit. That was how most waitresses greeted them at a restaurant. But when the man finally turned around and looked at them, Sam had even more reason to flinch. The man's eyes were completely red. 

He caught Sam staring at his eyes. "Contacts," he said with a snort. "Things around here are pretty… dead," he said with a wry grin. "Gotta make your own humor, y'know?" 

Dean smiled appreciatively. 

Sam gave him a tight-lipped grin in response, and then something else caught his eye. It was a blonde-haired boy, probably only a few years younger than he was. 

The funeral home owner followed Sam's gaze. "C'mon out here, Garmr," he called to the boy. When Garmr stood next to him, he said, "This is Garmr Medgard, my new assistant. It's his first week on the job." 

Garmr looked at his shoes as he muttered a quiet hello. 

"And I'm Adam Hel," the man said, sticking out his arm to shake hands. 

Dean ignored it and flipped open his badge like a pro, flashing it just long enough for Adam to get a look at Dean's picture on the card, and nothing more. "We're from the FBI. I'm Agent Mulder and this is Agent Scully. We're here about the Schmidt corpse." 

Sam's eyes were plates on his face. _Agents Mulder and Scully?_ Luckily, he was used to Dean's antics and flashed his own badge a moment after Dean had put his away. 

Although he didn't make it blatantly clear, Sam noticed that Adam Hel suddenly didn't look so friendly anymore—an unfortunate side effect of presenting yourself as a FBI agent. 

"Wow, FBI?" Hel scratched the back of his head as he eyed the two men standing before him. "I was wondering when they'd call you in." 

Sam and Dean shot a quick glance at one another. 

"Why do you say that?" Sam asked slowly. 

Hel frowned. "Garmr, can you take these gentlemen to the Schmidt corpse?" 

Garmr walked toward the door, and when he opened it and left, Sam and Dean realized they were supposed to follow him. Five silent minutes later, they'd walked down the road and were approaching the next closest building. "The body's still in autopsy," Garmr said, still not making eye contact with anyone. 

"It's been over two days since the corpse was found, and it's the third homicide case of this kind. Why are they still examining the body?" Sam asked. 

Garmr's shoulders moved a bit and Sam took that as a clueless shrug. Then the boy shoved his way past them and walked back toward the funeral home. 

Once he was out of earshot, Dean snorted. "Sam, y'know who he reminds me of?" 

Sam raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. 

Dean smirked. "You." 

Sam made a face. "I think society's lucky there isn't anyone who reminds me of you. Dean—Agents _Mulder_ and _Scully_ from _The X-Files_? Are you stupid, or what?" 

"Hey, it worked. We were trying to pass as FBI agents, and those are good FBI agent names." 

"They _are_ FBI agent names. The most well-known FBI agent names on the planet, Dean," Sam said, annoyed. 

Dean frowned. "This is because I made you be Scully, isn't it? Fine, next time you can be Mulder." And with that, he turned around and headed into the building. 

Sam's mouth fell open in disbelief. He shook his head and scoffed as he walked in behind Dean. They both had to duck their heads, as the doorframe was unusually short, but fortunately, the ceiling was built higher. 

The inside of this building was very cold and had an eerie iridescent glow that made everything look oddly orange or yellow. "Hello?" Dean called out, as no one was situated at the front desk. 

A moment later, staccato-like footsteps could be heard getting louder and louder until finally, a slender young woman stood before them. She had light brown hair that fell down to her lower back and over the long white lab coat she wore. Her eyes were a pale blue, and in the odd lighting, her pallid complexion made her look almost waif-like. 

She strode toward the boys, her movements fluid and graceful. 

"He_llo_," Dean said, flashing his charming, toothy grin as he looked the girl up and down. 

The woman introduced herself. "I'm Lilith Hel." Her voice was velvety and her words hung in the air like molasses. 

The look on Dean's face was almost instantly replaced by a pout. "Hel? As in Adam Hel?" 

Her eyes widened and she smiled as she replied. "Yes, I see you've already met my husband." 

Dean pulled out his badge and Sam followed suit while stifling back his snickering as well. "We're with the FBI," Dean said. "I'm Agent Mulder, this is Agent Scully. We're here to see the Schmidt corpse. 

"Garmr Medgard brought us here," Sam added. 

"Oh. Adam just called me about this. Right this way, gentlemen," Lilith said, walking back toward the same hallway she'd emerged from minutes before. 

Dean readjusted his jacket to make sure the bottles were securely inside while Sam walked ahead of him. 

Lilith led them down a long hallway and stopped at the last door on the left. "The body's on the table. I could show you—" 

"No, that's okay," Dean interjected. He jutted a thumb at Sam. "He's a medical doctor. We'll take it from here," he said as he opened the door and disappeared behind it. 

Sam looked at her apologetically, but the woman seemed unfazed by Dean's behavior, almost as if she'd expected as much from him. 

_She must have small children_, Sam thought, shaking his head. He thanked Lilith for her assistance and followed Dean inside. 

Once the door was closed and the tip tapping of Lilith's heels melted into silence, Dean pulled the empty bottles out of his jacket, setting them on a nearby table, and Sam lifted the sheet that was covering Abel Schmidt's body. 

"All right, let's drain this sucker," Dean said a bit too enthusiastically. 

But Sam stared at the body with a look of alarm. "Uh, Dean? I think someone beat us to it." 

"What're you talking about?" But when Dean looked at the body, the expression on his face shifted to match the one on Sam's. 

The body had many markings on it, as though Abel Schmidt had been mauled to death, but his face, arms, legs, and all the rest of his body's cavities just barely hung from his bones. All the blood had been drained from his body. 

Dean was the first to speak. "If you don't have a silver bullet, I guess that's one way to kill a werewolf." He used one of the operating tools to make a small incision on Schmidt's arm and marveled over the dried up insides. 

Sam went through his vision again. Werewolf or not, Abel Schmidt had been alive. He was _supposed_ to be alive. Yet here he was, definitely dead. 

Dean looked up. "What're you thinking?" 

Sam narrowed his eyes, going over things one more time, then looked up at his brother. "Vampires." 

x x x

  
A few miles away on the far edge of the forest sat the surprisingly sturdy and intact remnants of a black barn. Exploring such a place would make for quite an interesting afternoon, but in all the years the location of the barn had been known, no living soul dared to venture across the dark and uninviting threshold. 

It was surrounded by a protective grove of trees, which only allowed entry if you knew where you were going, or if you'd taken an unfortunate, definitely fatal turn off the marked trails. 

Unbeknownst to the people inhabiting the town across from the forest, this barn wasn't as dead as they thought it was. In fact, it was pretty _un_dead. 

Inside, in an assortment of hammocks, sleeping bags, and makeshift beds slept about two dozen young people, clothed in dark garments or not clothed at all. Near the back corner, a blonde girl slept in a hammock with her cowboy hat pulled over her face, but she suddenly jerked awake from her peaceful slumber. 

"Kate!" She hissed so quickly and quietly that her lips hardly moved. "Do you smell that?" 

But Kate was already awake. She sat in her bed, sniffing the air. Her eyes widened in delight when she was able to register the stench. She thought about waking up the rest of the coven, but decided against it. The maddening smell would have them all up by the end of the hour. 

Kate stood up, licking her lips, and when she saw her blonde companion had recognized the smell too, a sinister smile snaked across her face. 

"Tonight, we eat out." 

**Author's Note:** Vampires, werewolves, and visions, oh my! Hopefully you're interested and anxious for the next chapter, which will be posted in a couple days. :) 


	2. City of Devils

**Chapter 2: City of Devils**

Dean groaned as he put the empty bottles back inside his jacket pockets. "So this was a big waste. Thought I could switch things up a bit, jack some blood off Buddy, here, but _no_, he had to go get drained by a _vampire_! Pisses me off!"

Sam ignored his brother's fit. He picked up Abel Schmidt's autopsy report, which lay next to the operating tools. "Dean, it says here that the other two bodies were drained of blood, too."

Dean pursed his lips. "Definitely vampires."

"But why are they after werewolves?"

"Sam, I don't think these people are werewolves at all. This is another vampire case. Been there, done that," he shrugged.

Sam shook his head, unconvinced. "I need to do some research. Can you get the blood from the funeral home?"

"I'd pick the funeral home over the library any day," Dean laughed.

Sam covered Abel Schmidt's corpse with the white sheet, and Dean double-checked to make sure everything in the room looked reasonably undisturbed. They waved goodbye to Lilith and walked back toward the funeral home, where they had left the Impala. When they reached the car, they both turned to look toward the entrance of the funeral home, where they could see a tall man yelling at Garmr.

"This is your fault! You monster!" The man lost his temper and took a swing at Garmr, knocking the boy to the ground.

"Holy shit!" Sam cried aloud. He took quick, long strides toward the man who was yelling at Garmr, and Dean followed along, not sure what Sam was doing. Sam put a hand on the man's shoulder and whirled him around, and now Dean also stared at the man in shock. "Abel Schmidt?" Sam barely managed to utter.

Sure enough, the man they were looking at had the dark curly hair, dark eyes, tan skin, and all the same features as the corpse they had just looked at. The man's expression, however, was grim. "No, I'm Caine Schmidt, Abel's twin brother."

Sam stood frozen as he was finally able to make sense of his vision. He hadn't been seeing Abel in his vision; he'd been seeing Caine!

Before things got too awkward, Dean flashed his badge at Caine. "We're with the FBI," he said with a cheeky grin. "We're investigating your brother's death and the other two cases like it."

Caine glared at Dean, then Sam, and for a long time at Garmr, once the boy had gotten up. Then Caine stalked off toward the direction from which Sam and Dean had just arrived.

Garmr fidgeted nervously and Sam smiled politely.

"Friend of yours?" Dean flashed his toothy smile.

Sam gawked at Dean as Garmr ignored them both and rushed back inside the funeral home.

"What do you think that was about?" Dean asked while he and Sam walked toward the car.

"I dunno. But that guy was pretty upset," Sam said. "I wonder what could've made him angry enough to hit Garmr like that. It's not like Garmr ever says or does anything."

Dean shrugged. "Maybe the kid just showed up at the wrong place, wrong time. Caine Schmidt's brother was just murdered so it's understandable he's in a bad mood. I mean, I was pissed as hell when those hicks carted you off." Dean caught sight of Sam's lips twitching into a grin, so he corrected himself. "Pissed as hell at _you_ for getting yourself carted off," he said with a glare. "Anyway, get in the car. I'll drop you off at the library and then come back to get the blood once it gets darker. Just don't leave the library, okay? There's no way to know if the vampires have caught wind of our scent yet, so it's not safe."

"Dean, if they've caught our scent already, they could get me at the library if they really wanted to," Sam said.

Dean pursed his lips. "Just don't leave, okay?"

"Fine, fine," Sam said. "I won't leave."

x x x

Sam was pleasantly surprised when he arrived at the library. The last time he was in Manning, Colorado, nothing gave him reason to believe their library would be anything extensive, but considering the town harbored vampires _and_ werewolves, it actually made sense that the town would be bubbling with all sorts of history.

At a glance, the cream-colored building seemed to be the largest construction in the vicinity. The three-story architecture was very intricate. It consisted of curved walls and inaccessible balconies located near the roof. But despite how much it should stand out in a town where homes made from wooden panels still exist, the empty walkway leading to the library, as well as the surrounding area, proved otherwise.

Once Dean had driven away, Sam timidly walked into the library, feeling as though his gangly body might somehow disturb the absolute peace and quiet of the solid structure. Inside were rows and rows of shelves filled completely with books of all shapes and sizes. The walls of the library were lined in glass cases that displayed many historical artifacts, although they weren't as extravagant as the actual library. Sam scoffed at three sets of pure gold, silver, and bronze silverware before laughing to himself and walking toward the front desk.

"Excuse me? Is anyone here?" Sam called out quietly, looking for the librarian. Perhaps they didn't even have a librarian because no one ever visited the library.

Suddenly, a very peculiar man barely half as tall as Sam popped up from behind a stack of books that was pushed off to the side of the desk. He wore a sheriff's outfit, and even though he was inside, wore a pair of dark sunglasses.

Sam eyed his nametag. "Mr. Dante?" he asked.

"Joe Dante," he said. His voice was so rough and metallic it sounded like iron being crushed. He stood on top of a stack of books to see over Sam's head. "You're here alone?" He began wringing his hands. "Wait, why are you here at all? This is the library, boy! No one comes to the library!"

Sam pulled a face. "I was actually looking for some books," he said slowly. "If you could just point me toward the paranormal section, I could help myself—"

"PARANORMAL?" Dante shrieked, making Sam jump back in alarm. "Paranormal, paranormal, paranormal. You're not a vampire, are you?" The small man began running his hands through his thick black hair. "Oh, no! No, no, no—"

"I'm not a vampire," Sam said quickly. "I was just looking for some books—"

"_About_ vampires!" Dante yelled, punching the air with his fist. Then he made a face, climbed onto the desk and leaned very close to Sam's face. "You trying to be funny with me?"

Sam was confused, but he quickly interjected before the man could interrupt him again. "I'm just looking for some books about werewolves."

"_Werewolves_?" Dante spluttered. "Werewolves? Where? Wolves? Werewolves!" He gibbered on a bit longer before he seemed to remember Sam was standing before him. "No. There's no such thing as werewolves!" Then he laughed to himself for a bit. "Funny. Trying to be funny with me. Funny, funny, funny boy." And suddenly his voice dropped an octave lower as he glared and pointed a finger into Sam's chest. "I'm on to you," he sneered, holding out the last syllable.

Sam gently removed Dante's finger from his torso and proceeded in trying to explain himself again. "I understand that there's no such thing as werewolves, but I was just curious about what folklore said about them. So, I was wondering if you knew anything about—"

"_Me_? Know anything about werewolves?" Dante gasped as though Sam had offended him somehow. "Of course I don't know anything about werewolves. Nope! No werewolves for me! Where's the wolf? I don't see a wolf—!"

Sam groaned inwardly. "I'm kind of in a hurry. Could you please point me toward the paranormal section?"

Fidgeting uncontrollably, Dante looked around to make sure no one was looking, then shouted, "There!" He pointed toward the back wall, and immediately jumped off the desk and hid under his chair.

Sam looked over the stacks of books to make sure the small, trembling man was all right before making his way to the back wall. When he looked over his shoulder, he could see Joe Dante peeking at him from behind a potted plant.

Sam strolled through the isles, whispering creature names as he passed them. "Tiamat… tikoloshe… utukku… vodyanoi… wahwee… wendigo… werewolf," he said when he finally found the one book about werewolves in the whole library. He tucked it under his arm and headed for a table situated in a corner, although he wouldn't have had to worry about anyone reading over his shoulder no matter where he chose to sit since the library was completely deserted of patrons.

Fifteen minutes later, he was dialing Dean's number.

"What?" Dean said on the other end. He was sitting in the Impala, loading the silver bullets with the blood he'd swiped from the funeral home.

"Dean, listen to this," Sam said. Then, in hushed whispers, he began to read to Dean the exact ritual that Caine Schmidt had performed in his vision.

"Okay, we already know that," Dean said.

"Yeah, but then it says that that's the ritual you perform if you want to become a werewolf on a night where there's no full moon. New werewolves can't transform on command, so if they want to transform on a night where there's no full moon, they use this ritual. But otherwise, when they're not transformed, they appear as normal humans," Sam trailed off.

"Except?" Dean asked, knowing Sam wasn't finished.

"Except they have red eyes. Their eyes return to their normal color only when they're in wolf form, but otherwise, their eyes are red." Even through the phone, Sam could sense Dean's eyes growing wide in realization.

"Adam Hel," Dean whispered.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "He's definitely a werewolf."

"Dude, what color are Garmr's eyes?" Dean asked, startled.

Sam recalled all his meetings with Garmr, but every time he'd seen the boy, he was always staring down at his shoes. "Dean, he's got to be a werewolf, too."

"And if Adam Hel's a werewolf, you think his wife's a werewolf, too?" Dean asked.

Sam thought about all the eyes he'd seen today. "No, I'm pretty sure her eyes were blue. Definitely not red—" Sam froze.

"Sam!" Dean shouted into the phone, alarmed when his brother suddenly stopped talking. "Sam, don't go anywhere, it's not safe!" he shouted when he heard movement on the other end.

Sam slammed the book shut and shoved it back on the shelf between two books about nisse and patupairehes. "The librarian," he gasped into the receiver, recalling Joe Dante's dark sunglasses and his nervous behavior. "He's a werewolf. I've got to get out of here."

He still wasn't sure if the werewolves were behind any of the murders in town, and Joe Dante seemed harmless enough, but werewolves were still dangerous creatures who attacked humans because it was instinctively appealing and natural to them. It was safer to have room to escape outside, while vampires were running around, than to be trapped in a building with a werewolf.

Sam could hear Dean's breathing on the other end, conflicted about what to do. "Dean, get the blood and the bullets ready and meet me at—"

"Blood?"

Sam wheeled around to see Joe Dante's head pop up from behind the desk. He slowly lowered the phone from his ear, ignoring Dean's shouting on the other end, while trying to remain calm. Slowly, he began to back up toward the entrance. "Um, yeah. Like… bloodroot! Have you heard of it? It looks like it's just a white flower, but it's actually related to the poppy and has a red root and that's why they call it bloodroot."

"Brains," Dante noted as he came out from behind the desk. His voice was an octave lower again. "I like brains."

Sam had a feeling his intellect wasn't being complimented here.

"Listen, I know you're a werewolf," Sam stated.

"Do you, now?" Dante asked, amused. He took off his sunglasses to reveal a pair of glowing, blood red eyes.

Sam wondered what had happened to the nervous Joe Dante he'd met just minutes before, but when he saw hairs sprouting out of Dante's forehead, Sam realized what was happening.

Dante was about to transform.

Sam turned to run, but the moment he took his eyes off Dante, a blood-curdling roar sounded. Sam kept running, but he was suddenly knocked off his feet and slammed into one of the glass cases. He moaned as he got to his feet again, wincing from the several tiny lacerations on his left hand and the left side of his face.

When he looked up, Dante was no where to be seen, although shreds of his clothing were scattered on the ground. Instead, a tall monster covered in pitch-black fur loomed over him, calmly licking its chops. Sam could still hear Dean on the phone, which was still open and had landed near him. He grabbed it and shouted into it, "Dean, just get the blood!" Then he snapped it shut and hurtled it at the glass case with the silverware in it. The crashing sound distracted Dante long enough for Sam to dash toward the case, reach into it and pull out a silver butter knife, but before he had time to turn around, Dante was already behind him. In one swift motion, he had Sam pinned to the wall by the neck.

Sam choked due to the sudden lack of air, but he still had a firm grip on the knife. Just as Dante opened his mouth to take a bite out of him, Sam thrust the silver knife into the werewolf's heart. Dante's eyes shot open in surprise, he shuddered a bit, and finally let go of Sam. They both slumped to the ground, Sam catching his breath, Dante breathing his last before transforming back to his human form.

When he could breathe properly again, Sam crawled toward Dante's now naked body. He turned him over, pulled the knife from his chest, and then pressed the man's eyelids closed. While he was cleaning the knife of his fingerprints, his ears perked up too late as frantic footsteps hurried up the library entrance.

The door opened to reveal Lilith Hel, who gaped at the scene before her. Sam knew what it must look like to her. The library was a mess, Joe Dante was dead and naked, and Sam was reasonably unharmed and cleaning his prints off the murder weapon. Sam grimaced. "Would you believe me if I told you this isn't what it looks like?"

Lilith's eyes filled with tears as she ran out of the library, screaming for help.

"Dammit," Sam muttered. He finished cleaning the knife, went behind the front desk to quickly delete any footage captured by the security cameras stationed around the library, and then he disabled the program all together.

He opened the library doors to make a run for it, but he never made it out. Three police cars had blockaded the library entrance, people had already started to gather around the forming scene, and Lilith Hel was sobbing while talking to a couple of officers, pointing and nodding in Sam's direction.

Defeated and trapped, Sam bowed his head as he walked down the library steps toward the officer standing at the end of the walkway, who had a gun pointed at him in one hand, and a pair of open handcuffs in the other.

x x x

Dean gunned the Impala's engine as he raced through the streets, running stop signs, swerving through traffic, and taking shortcuts through people's backyards. When he finally reached the library, he slammed on the breaks, screeching to a halt as he just barely managed not to crash into a squad car. He got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and immediately began calling for his brother. "Sam!" he yelled. Then he caught sight of the ambulance parked near the library entrance. A stretcher was being loaded onto it, and it held a body that was completely covered with a white sheet. "Oh, God," Dean whispered, his voice cracking.

He began to walk toward the ambulance when he heard Sam's voice from the other direction.

"Dean!" Sam called out.

Dean gawked when he turned around and saw Sam with his arms cuffed behind his back and his face covered in tiny little cuts. He marched through the throng of gathering people. "What's going on here?"

"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to step away," a police officer began to say.

"And I'm going to have to ask you to shove it," Dean barked. He caught the attention of the commanding officer. "Why the _fuck_ is my little brother in handcuffs?" he shouted.

The officer narrowed his eyes and squared his shoulders. "Your little brother murdered Joe Dante."

Dean mouthed wordlessly as he looked into Sam's blank face for answers. "You can't know that—"

Another officer ran down the walkway and interrupted Dean. "We've just recovered the suspect's cell phone at the scene of the crime, sir," he said to his commanding officer. "And the security footage is a no-go. The tapes have been wiped clean."

"What about the murder weapon?"

"The knife was wiped clean of prints."

"The _silver_ knife," Sam suddenly said, eyeing Dean. "Which was stabbed into his heart."

Dean's eyes widened in realization. Dante had been the werewolf, and Sam had killed him.

The officer who had been talking to Dean shook his head in disgust as Sam seemed to gloat over how he had killed Dante. "Take him away," he said, pointing to Sam.

Then Dean suddenly noticed the other officer's eyes. Even in the darkness, they were glowing red. Another werewolf!

"You people can't do this!" Dean shouted in one last effort to save his brother.

"Sir, if you don't back away, you're going with him," one of the officers said.

Dean looked at the new officer—he also had red eyes. What was he going to do? There was no way he could open fire in the middle of all these people, but there was no way he could watch as Sam got carted off by a pack of werewolves, most likely angry because he'd just killed Joe Dante.

"You have no hard evidence that he committed the crime. You have no prints and no security footage," Dean said.

The commanding officer, who seemed to be the only human among the ranks, glared at Dean. "We have his phone, and that's enough to arrest him." With that, he pulled Sam toward a squad car and pushed his head down as Sam quietly got in. Moments later, the squad cars began to drive away from the library, the blue and red lights spinning around and around, placing an eerie glow on everything as dusk began to set and things slowly began to calm down again.

But Dean wasn't calm. He was confused. Things weren't adding up.

He jogged back to the Impala and loaded a pistol with the blood-filled silver bullets he'd created. He shoved it into the inside pocket of his leather jacket, revved the car's engine and drove back toward the funeral home.

Adam Hel had some explaining to do.

x x x

When Dean arrived at the funeral home, he barreled through the entrance. Adam Hel was situated at the front desk, talking on the phone. "I'll have to call you back." He hung up, then looked at Dean. "Anything I can help you with?"

Dean pulled out his pistol, pointed it at Hel and cocked it back. "Yeah, actually, I think you can."

Hel began to move toward Dean. "Okay, I think you should just calm down—"

"Don't move," Dean growled in a dangerously low voice. "This baby's loaded with silver bullets."

Hel smirked. "Figured it out, have you? We were told that you and your brother were pretty clever." He sniffed the air. "You wreak of blood."

Dean ignored the last comment and furrowed his brows in confusion. _Who_ had said they were clever?

"What's going on here—?" Garmr had heard the commotion up front and had come to check it out. When he saw Dean with the gun, he turned to run, but Dean was quick and planted a bullet into Garmr's shoulder, which knocked the boy to the ground.

"You idiot!" Hel shouted as he ran toward Garmr. "He isn't one of us!"

Sure enough, when Garmr looked up, Dean stared into a pair of frightened green eyes. Dean was thankful he hadn't aimed for Garmr's heart, but that was all he took the time to think about. Time wasn't a luxury he had right now. Sam's life was on the line. "Who do you work for?"

Hel pursed his lips together. "I don't know what you mean."

"YOU SAID SOMEONE TOLD YOU WE WERE CLEVER!" Dean shouted. Then he cocked the pistol again and shot into the wall right next to Garmr's head. "WHO THE _FUCK_ DO YOU WORK FOR?" He trained the pistol at Garmr's head and added in a low growl, "Next time I won't miss."

**Author's Note:** This is where the action begins! And c'mon, people. Show me some love. I mean, I put Sam in handcuffs! LOL!


	3. Dog Eat Dog

**Chapter 3: Dog Eat Dog**

Garmr had backed into the wall and was curled into a ball. He whimpered both from the pain of the flesh wound Dean had inflicted and from the pure terror of staring down the barrel of a pistol aimed at his head. "Mr. Hel, please tell him what he wants to know," he gasped as he squeezed his eyes shut and ducked his head down.

"Put the gun down," Hel told Dean, his red eyes pleading. "I'll tell you what you want to know, just don't hurt the boy."

Dean slowly lowered the pistol, but left it cocked just in case he needed it again. He had so many questions to ask, but decided to start simple. "What the hell is going on? There are werewolves all over town. Last time I was here I only ran into vampires."

"We haven't been here long," Hel explained as he retrieved a first aid kit for Garmr's shoulder. "Werewolves, and vampires, for that matter, age differently from humans, so every few years all of us have to pack up and move to a new town so that no one gets too suspicious. It's a bit like yin and yang, though, because wherever you find werewolves, you'll find vampires. Both species were the same once—"

"Heard about that," Dean said.

"Well, we have to feed on humans, and we cover up the deaths pretty easily since Lilith does autopsies and I'm certified to run a funeral home."

"Then why did you publish the deaths of Abel Schmidt and the other two cases like his?" Dean asked.

"Because those weren't us," Hel replied. "Schmidt was one of us. We had no reason to kill him."

"You think he was killed by the vampires across town." It wasn't a question.

"Honestly, we're not sure, but we think it might be them," Hel said.

"And knowing that it might be vampires, you publicized the homicides and probably had God knows how many _human_ detectives and forensics specialists investigating, _knowing_ that any minute they might be attacked by vampires?" Dean shook his head, abhorred by the man before him. "God. I know you're a _monster_, but—"

"That wasn't our intention," Hel shouted at Dean. "We wanted to _warn_ the townspeople. We didn't want to see anyone else get hurt."

"Oh, except for when you chow down on 'em once a month—that's okay," Dean huffed.

"It's for survival," Hel explained miserably. "But not for long."

"What?" Dean asked. "What do you mean not for long?"

"Besides the obvious, the main difference between vampires and werewolves is that most werewolves are more or less peaceful simply because our curse does not affect our entire being but for one day every month. Vampires, however, are cursed with their bloodlust every moment of the day. But the werewolves of my coven never wanted this," Hel ended quietly.

"Sam was right," Dean whispered to himself. "You and Abel Schmidt and all the rest of the werewolves here were the ones who got lost up in the woods last year, weren't you?"

"He did say you were clever," Hel said rather appreciatively. "Sam and Dean Winchester."

Dean pursed his lips, a little creeped out that Adam Hel knew his and Sam's names. "Who?" His voice sounded deadly. "Who has been telling you these things?"

Hel sighed. "That was Lilith on the phone just a minute ago. She let me know your brother's been arrested."

Dean remembered seeing Lilith talking to the cops, but what was it to her that Sam had been arrested? "Get to the point. I still need to break him out of there before anyone bites a chunk off of him."

"They won't harm him," Hel promised.

Dean relaxed for a moment when he heard that, but then he countered, "Just like Joe Dante didn't hurt him?" He remembered the mess he'd seen through the wide open library doors earlier in the evening and the small cuts on Sam's face.

"Joe was a rogue werewolf. He was never really a part of our coven, but we never had any problems with him. He works at the library, which hardly anyone visits. In a town this small, such a large library is a little unnecessary so no one ever visits, which is good for him. He's a swell guy, really, but despite his age, he can—could never control himself."

Hel finished bandaging Garmr's shoulder and was packing away the first aid supplies.

"Why's the kid here so special to you anyway?" Dean asked, nodding toward Garmr. "If he isn't one of you, then shouldn't you have had him for dinner by now? The full moon was just a couple days ago."

Garmr looked like he wanted to melt into the wall now that he was the topic of discussion. Hel put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We found him a week ago just outside the forest. He has no memory of how he got there, but we think he might be suffering from the trauma of being attacked by the vampires or whatever it is that's out there. We've taken him around town, but no one can recognize him. So we locked him in the basement on the night of the full moon and I guess he's staying with us for now."

"Wait, wait, wait," Dean interrupted, angry with himself for straying. "Tell me why you say your thugs won't hurt Sam and tell me, _who_ do you keep talking about? Apparently someone's been telling you an awful lot about Sam and me. Is it one of the vampires?"

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous," Hel snapped. "Just because you'll find werewolves where you find vampires doesn't, by any means, make the two friends. Under no circumstances at all."

"Then who is it?" Dean demanded.

Hel looked at Garmr uneasily for a moment before replying to Dean. "I can't tell you who, but I can tell you it's a demon." Hel sighed, trying to find a way to word his next response properly. Garmr got up and headed toward the bathroom. "He came to us recently and offered us a deal," Hel continued. "The coven here wants, more than anything, to be normal humans once again. So the demon said he would relieve us of our curse if we found a way to…"

"Found a way to what?"

"If we found a way to deliver your brother to him."

"WHAT?" Dean roared. He spluttered for a minute, trying to find the words to explain the pure madness behind everything. First of all, who goes around making deals with demons? For impossible rewards? For any kind of real reward at all? "You fucking bastard!" Dean screamed as he began to pace the room. "You just sat here feeding me this absolute bullshit about werewolves being so fucking _peaceful_ and now you're telling me you're using my little brother as a sacrificial lamb for—"

"We thought one more life would be a good sacrifice for _all_ our lives. For our _humanity_," Hel interjected in a firm voice.

Dean shook his head, absolutely seething in all his rage. "It doesn't matter what you are or will be, but _humanity_ is something you abandoned long ago, and at this point, there is no way you'll be coming by it any time soon."

"Try to understand," Hel began again.

But Dean's pistol was out again, and this time he had it pointed at Hel's heart. "Where did they take him?" It couldn't be as simple as the police station if they were really going to deliver Sam to a demon, maybe even _the_ demon.

Hel looked up almost somberly. "I don't know."

"You better not be pullin' my chain because I swear to God if you are I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth so that I can personally send you packing to the reaper." When Hel didn't say anything else, Dean groaned in frustration as he stalked out the door and back to the Impala.

Adam Hel didn't necessarily feel good about sacrificing another's life for his own, but for such an impossible reversal of fate, it really did seem like a good deal. Sam Winchester's sacrifice would not be a waste.

He got up to put away the first aid kit, then rapped on the bathroom door. "Garmr, you okay in there?"

No answer.

"Garmr?" Hel knocked harder.

When Garmr didn't answer again, Hel opened the door, but he found that the bathroom was completely empty.

Hel scratched his head in confusion. "I could've sworn he went in here," he said aloud.

He scanned the bathroom again, but not thoroughly enough, for he failed to notice the thick cloud of black smoke escaping through the air vent near the ceiling.

x x x

Dean was parked at a stop sign. He sat in the Impala with his hands at his temples and his eyes closed.

_Protect Sammy, protect Sammy, protect Sammy_. That had been Dean's mantra all his life, and here he was in a situation where Sam was definitely not safe, and there was no way he could protect him. He had no clue where Sam had been taken and no way to find him. Sam didn't even have his phone on him, so there was no way to track him either.

Dean exhaled, long and slow. He eyed his pistol, which lay on the passenger seat, and suddenly an idea struck him. He quickly made sure all his weapons were loaded, eased off the break, and headed across town toward the thick of the woods.

x x x

Kate impatiently paced the length of her room. With Luthor gone, she led their coven now so she got her own living quarters, but it didn't really provide a sense of privacy. The other vampires in the barn were up now, and she could hear them moving around restlessly. They were absolutely mad with thirst. The stench of the Winchester brothers filled every nook and cranny of their home, but they couldn't do anything about it until twilight laid the sun to rest for the night.

Their smells usually combined to form one potent and alluring scent, but something odd was happening now. The smells were coming from different directions. The brothers weren't together.

Kate smiled when she figured this out. All the easier to take them down.

She swept aside the curtain covering the window. To her delight, the sun had finally set. Kate whipped her door open, and her presence immediately commanded the attention of all the vampires in the room. She would never tire of the sense of power her head position granted her.

"Let's go," she said. But no one moved, as was expected. Kate smiled, just barely revealing one canine, as she walked through the two dozen vampires around her. As the leader of the coven, she would be the first out the door and, in theory, the first to sink her fangs into a Winchester. But just as she got to the door, someone else opened it, nearly ripping it off its hinges.

Kate's eyes lit up when she realized it was Dean Winchester who stood before her. A machete hung from his waist, but otherwise, he seemed unarmed. "Ah, so the prey has come to us," she mused aloud.

"If that's how you wanna see it," Dean said. Then he reached behind him and pulled out two pistols, aiming them into the barn filled with vampires. He opened fire on the vampires, hitting about a dozen of them. Once his pistols ran out of bullets, he dropped them next to his feet and pulled out two more pistols that were in his jacket pockets to repeat the process. When he was done, every vampire except for Kate had suffered from at least one bullet wound.

Kate gawked incredulously and a few of the surrounding vampires risked laughing at him as well. Dean ignored them as he quietly bent down to retrieve his empty pistols. "You really are the stupid one, aren't you?" Kate scoffed as he quickly began reloading his guns. "Bullets can't hurt us! You should know that from the last time we met." But a moment later, one by one, the vampires behind her began crumpling to the ground. She whipped her head around, watching as the whole coven lay on the ground, squirming and moaning in anguish. Kate looked at Dean, confused, then sniffed the air. "I smell silver. Melting silver," she whispered, confused. Silver wasn't supposed to hurt them! "What did you do to them?"

Dean gave her a sinister smile. "Silver bullet capsules filled with dead man's blood." He aimed the gun at Kate and cocked it back. "Now who's feeling stupid?"

Kate felt her mouth fall open as she took a nervous step backwards, cursing inwardly for having underestimated the Winchesters again. She had just stood there while he shot everyone with dead man's blood!

She could be at his throat in an instant, but as soon as she made a move, Dean would pull the trigger and she'd be filled with dead man's blood. She remembered being pierced by the blood-soaked arrows during her last tussle with the Winchesters, and while it didn't kill her, it certainly wasn't pleasant and it took a while to filter out of one's system.

Suddenly, a blur of blonde launched itself at Dean, and although Dean was knocked to the ground, he quickly grabbed his machete and severed the head of his attacker, a blonde girl in a cowboy hat. Kate took the chance to lunge at Dean as well, but Dean had anticipated this and buried three bullets into her chest before she ever had a chance to attack.

Kate fell to the ground in a heap as Dean climbed to his feet, keeping his gun trained on Kate the whole time. "So how about we make a deal," Dean said. "I slice and dice each and every one of you, or you do me a favor."

Kate had her eyes closed, trying not to focus on the pain and numbness that was spreading throughout her body. "What is this about?" she said through gritted teeth.

"Are you willing to help me in exchange for your life or not?" Dean shouted.

Kate hesitated a moment before she grabbed the severed head that lay next to her and threw it at Dean's head. Dean yelled as it hit him and knocked him to the ground. "Not!" Kate shouted as she crawled toward Dean, who lay dazed on the ground, covered in vampire blood. "No deal, you son of a bitch."

She wrapped a hand around Dean's neck, and just as her second set of teeth descended, Kate felt something sharp pushed up against her own neck. She looked down to discover it was Dean's machete.

"If you don't help me find my brother, I will chop your head off right now and bathe in your blood," Dean said in a dangerously low, raspy voice.

Kate's hand was still on Dean's neck. She squeezed slightly, making Dean gag, but he responded by pushing the machete a little bit, too. "It's a stalemate, baby," Kate said. The blade on her neck broke through her skin, and by the time she felt the faint trickle of blood sliding down her chest, the wound on her neck had healed itself. "Sweeten your end of the pot and we might have a deal."

"What do you want?" Dean asked her.

"The Colt," Kate said, hoping to get lucky.

"Can't do that," Dean smirked knowingly. He had expected this. "Try again."

Kate responded by squeezing Dean's neck, but every time she did this, Dean simply pushed harder against the machete that was pressed against Kate's neck. They really were in a deadlock.

Kate thought for a moment before finally saying, "Get rid of the werewolves in town."

"What?"

"Get rid of the werewolves," Kate repeated. "You promise to do that, and I'll help you find your brother."

Dean recalled how Adam Hel had told him that the demon he'd made a bargain with had said it would lift the curse off the werewolves in exchange for Sam. The werewolves were going to succeed in delivering Sam to the demon for now, so they'll be free of their curse, and therefore normal humans. "I can do that," Dean answered. "Once you sniff out Sam, I guarantee you no werewolves."

Kate considered the bargain for a few seconds more. "Deal," she said.

"Wait!" Dean added. "While we're looking for Sam, you have to promise not to make a snack out of me or anyone else. You and your whole coven." That was a good extra condition to add. Sammy would probably appreciate Dean being alive and human when rescuing him.

Kate frowned. "Fine. But the condition stands only until we get to your brother."

"Fine," Dean replied.

The other vampires began to make their ways into other rooms of the barn once they were finished witnessing the deal. Dean stood up after Kate rolled off him. He began to wipe most of the vampire blood that had gotten on his face when he noticed that Kate was having trouble getting on her feet since the dead man's blood was quickly making its way through her system. When Dean reached out to help her, she pushed him away.

"Don't touch me!" she growled.

Dean winced, taking a step back. "Just trying to help," he mumbled.

Kate looked at Dean critically. "Thanks," she muttered. "It's just that you smell."

Dean made a face. "What?" He began sniffing under his armpits. "I guess I'm a little sweaty, but I don't think—"

"Not that way," Kate snapped. "Vampires are creatures of their word, but if you get too close, I might not be able to resist taking a bite out of you."

Dean took two large steps backwards. "Don't get too close. Copy that." When Kate finally stood up with help from the support beam next to her, Dean thought of another question. "Why do you want me to get rid of the werewolves anyway?"

"So that we can hunt again. They keep killing random people and draining them of all their blood and leaving them around the forest. Not that we care, but they're being too sloppy about it. Fine, kill a mortal, but put the body somewhere else!" Kate said, throwing her arms up in the air. "The vampire hunters nearby will be onto us soon, and even if they're not onto us, they'll come by to investigate soon if word gets out that the body's have been drained of all blood."

Dean's eyes widened slightly, but not enough to catch Kate's attention. The werewolves thought the vampires were the murderers, and the vampires thought the werewolves were the murderers, but obviously, neither was the guilty party. So who was murdering people in the forest? Dean kept this new piece of the puzzle to himself. "Oh," he said in response to Kate's rant. "Those rotten werewolves!" He shook his fist.

"If you're done playing Twenty Questions," Kate said, rolling her eyes in annoyance.

Dean grinned sheepishly.

"Do you know who took your brother?" Kate asked. She was eager to find Sam so that she could finally have him and his brother for dinner.

"Like I was saying, those rotten werewolves!" Dean said. "They've infiltrated the police station and they arrested Sam, but I'm pretty sure they're not taking him to the police station, so yeah. I need you to follow his scent since he's probably still nearby."

"Charna's guts! Is there any place those scumbags haven't infiltrated?" Kate glowered. "Anyway, you're right, your brother's still nearby and he's not at the police station because that's located in the northern part of town and I can just faintly make out his scent coming from the east. Let's go," she said, making her way out the door.

"Who's Charna? And what's so great about his guts?" Dean asked, following after her.

Kate groaned. The sooner this was over, the better.

x x x

Sam had never been in the backseat of a police cruiser before, so his current predicament would be rather interesting if he weren't being hauled off for committing murder. He fidgeted every now and then, for it was uncomfortable sitting with his hands bound behind him. He looked forward to arriving at the police station. Hopefully they'd have paperclips scattered about the place.

Sam used the drive to the police station to wonder about his vision. Caine Schmidt was going to turn into a werewolf tonight, but why? _Probably because he wants to kill someone_, Sam thought. Then he remembered how Caine had been yelling at Garmr. _Probably because he wants to kill Garmr! But why?_

There were also the three murders. They didn't match vampires _or_ werewolves. At first glance, the victims appeared to have been mauled to death, but then they had also been drained of all their blood. They seemed to suffer from wounds inflicted by vampires and werewolves, but that didn't make sense since vampires and werewolves are enemies. Nothing in the world could make the two work together, so who, or _what_, was behind the murders?

Sam thought some more about his vision, but then he began to feel very uneasy. The first time he'd had visions, they were about Max, whose family had been ruined the same way Sam's had been ruined, and the second time Sam had had visions, they were about a family who was going to get attacked by _the demon_. But so far, nothing about these visions made sense. There was no connection to anything.

Sam shook his head to clear his thoughts. He glanced out the window and was alarmed when he saw they were driving on a straight road lined with trees, and only trees. There were no buildings in sight, and the main part of town was now behind them.

"Excuse me," Sam called to the two police officers riding in the front seat.

They both turned around, not minding the road, but that wasn't cause for Sam's alarm. Both officers had glowing red eyes.

Sam felt his own eyes widen. "Um, nevermind," he muttered, flashing a quick tight-lipped smile.

_I'm being kidnapped by werewolves!_ Sam shouted in his head. He began to worry about a lot of things just then, but mostly, he silently scolded himself for not having a damn paperclip.

Suddenly, the car began to slow before a short black building that seemed to have randomly been plopped into the forest. The construction looked glossy and marble-like, and it seemed almost invisible since the shiny surface reflected only the trees that surrounded the building.

Sam was roughly pulled out of the car and pushed along until he stood alone inside the building. The only sources of illumination were tiny lights that lined the bottom of all the hallways. He was happy the werewolves weren't with him anymore, but despite his size, Sam felt miniscule and vulnerable in the unfamiliar darkness.

"Is this the police station?" Sam asked, knowing already that it wasn't. When no one answered him, Sam called out again. "Hello?"

Suddenly, a bright spotlight flickered on, and under the light stood a person. Sam squinted his eyes to get a better look. The person was standing with his back toward him, but Sam immediately recognized the figure by his blonde hair and by the way his head was positioned since he was looking down at his shoes, as always. "Garmr?" Sam said, confused.

Garmr slowly turned around and he began to lift his head so that he could look at Sam. When Sam caught sight of Garmr's eyes, he lost the ability to move—literally. Sam was frozen on the spot by powers beyond his control.

Garmr walked forward until he stood a few inches in front of Sam. With his unnatural yellow eyes, he looked into Sam's frightened brown eyes.

"I've been expecting you."

**Author's Note:** Omg, Garmr's evilll! With a crazy name like that, why shouldn't he be evil, right? XD And howww hot is Dean/guns, eh? You'll see Dean/guns a lot in this fic because I find that sexy, lol! And since the response from my readers has been so positive, I've decided to post one chapter per day, and since this fic will be six chapters long, that means this'll be all posted up by the end of the week. Hope yall are enjoying the ride so far. :D


	4. Live Wire

**Chapter 4: Live Wire**

Dean finished refilling the Impala's gas tank and walked back to the car, thanking a Mr. J. R. Selkca for the unsolicited use of his credit card.

"Why do you have so many plastic spoons in your car?" Kate asked, grimacing at all the random things scattered about the backseat.

A big grin broke across Dean's face. "You don't wanna know." He drove eastward for a bit before asking, "Who's Charna?"

Kate arched one long, thin eyebrow, almost amused by Dean's genuine curiosity over something so trivial. "Charna was a vampire who had most of his guts clawed out in a fight, but he carried on fighting and won the battle. Today, when you're suitably riled, you say 'Charna's guts!' It's the same as 'bloody hell' or 'I'll be damned' or 'stone the crows.'"

"Stone the crows?" Dean said skeptically.

"I've been alive longer than you. Trust me, it used to be a popular saying," Kate said.

"Huh." Then suddenly, Dean shouted, "Charna's guts!" He slammed down on the brakes.

Kate turned to glare at Dean, but instead, her eyes fell upon the funeral home in front of which Dean had stopped. The door had been kicked down and just barely hung from its hinges, one of the windows was cracked, and shouting and growling could be heard inside.

"C'mon!" Dean said, getting out of the car to sprint toward the building.

"This isn't a part of our deal!" Kate shouted as she got out of the car.

"No, but it might interest you. That funeral home is run by a werewolf," Dean said.

A look of confusion settled on Kate's face, but she followed Dean nonetheless.

As soon as Dean and Kate were inside, they could see that the damage to the building had been done by a werewolf, but surprisingly, that werewolf was not Adam Hel, for he was backed up against the far wall. He had a large gash bleeding on the side of his head and was completely defenseless against the werewolf that was advancing on him.

"Where is that little monster?" the werewolf growled. "He's a murderer, Hel, and there's no use hiding him!"

"I don't know where he is!" Hel shouted back. "You don't know what you're talking about! You're crazy!"

Dean vaguely wondered who the werewolf was, but then he remembered Sam's vision. He pointed his gun at the werewolf and said, "Hey! Caine!"

Surprised to hear his name, the werewolf turned to face Dean.

Dean patted his gun. "Silver bullets, okay? Now, just calm down—"

Caine lunged at Kate, but Dean jumped in front of her and cocked his gun. "Steady, now," he said in a calm voice. "Besides she probably won't taste so good."

Dean noticed Caine's nostrils flaring. "Vampire!" he growled accusingly at Kate.

"Give the dog a bone," Kate drawled, stepping next to Dean.

"What're you doing? Get back," Dean hissed.

"Cute. My knight in… a leather jacket," Kate said bluntly. "You don't need to protect me from him. I can drink his blood, but vampire blood is poisonous to him. That's why he's so angry I'm a vampire."

"But you won't make a snack out of him, right?" Dean said, raising his eyebrows. "You promised."

"Sad, but true," Kate sighed.

"That's a good song," Dean said matter-of-factly. A growl from Caine pulled his attention back to the matter at hand. "Okay, Caine, Adam Hel isn't the murderer—"

"I know he's not the murderer!" Caine shouted. "It's that kid he's been towing along with him!"

"Garmr?" Dean made a face. "That kid wouldn't hurt a fly. Probably because he's never looking up long enough to actually _see_ a fly. And besides, I've seen his eyes. They're green. He's not a werewolf."

"Ha!" Caine barked. "This would be easy if he were a mere werewolf. But directly after the second murder, I caught him draining the victim's body of its blood—"

"_Garmr_?" Dean asked again, still unable to believe the shy boy he'd clipped earlier this evening could possibly be a murderer.

"He caught me spying on him, and when he turned around, his eyes were _yellow_!" Caine hissed.

This banished any doubts Dean had. Yellow eyes. There was only one type of creature he'd come across that had yellow eyes. "What happened then?"

"I told him I was going to turn him in, but he said not to, and the next thing I know, Abel's dead!" Caine howled.

Dean considered this information for a long while. It was so improbable to nail Garmr as the murderer, but everything pointed to such a verdict. Neither the werewolves nor the vampires were behind the murders, and all markings on the victims proved that. Garmr seemed like a nervous, insecure person, and furthermore, it seemed he had amnesia—a perfect chink in the armor for possession. And lastly, Sam having a vision proved that a demon, if not _the_ demon, was involved in this. Why else would this thing be interested in Sam?

Dean felt his heart rate pick up. Sam was in more danger than he had imagined. He had to hurry.

Dean eyed the computer perched on the edge of the front desk. "Does that thing have Internet?" he asked.

"Yeah," Hel said warily.

Dean was about to cross the room to get to the computer when he eyed Caine. "Isn't there a way to turn him off?"

"What do you mean?" Hel asked.

"I mean I don't feel like being eaten by a werewolf when I'm not looking."

"You won't have to worry about that," Caine answered. "The… method I used to transform only changes my physical appearance for the time being, but my mental state is still the same as that of a human."

Dean looked at Hel, who nodded to confirm what Caine had said.

"Okay, just, everybody _stay_," Dean commanded. "And no one accidentally eat anyone," he said, eyeing Kate. He walked over to the computer and accessed one of the government-controlled websites he and Sam had hacked into once. "I think Garmr's possessed, and I think it might be the same demon who pitched that deal to you guys," Dean said to the werewolves. "What's his last name again?"

"Medgard," Hel replied.

"Wait a minute. What deal?" Kate asked.

Hel explained the specifics of the bargain, and Kate glared at Dean. "You tricked me!"

"I did," Dean concurred as his fingers rapidly moved across the keyboard.

"You don't even have to do anything to get rid of the werewolves!" Kate shouted.

"All you said was you wanted me to get rid of the werewolves. Well, you find Sam, we find Garmr, and we get rid of the werewolves. Everybody's happy—! Dude!" Dean suddenly exclaimed, staring at the screen.

Hel walked over to see what had surprised Dean. They were looking at the profile of one Garmr Medgard. All the stats seemed to match up except for one tiny little detail: Garmr Medgard had been killed in a train explosion twelve years ago.

"The demon's possessing a dead body?" Kate asked after Dean had explained Garmr's profile. "Is that possible?"

"Yeah, it is," Dean said. "It's pretty complicated, though. It's easy enough to control a dead shell, but to actually put yourself inside one and have it pass as an actual human requires a pretty badass player."

"So how do we kill it?" Caine asked.

"Like you kill any restless spirit. You salt the remains and torch the sucker," Dean replied. "The tricky part is the Garmr we know _is_ what remains of him. He probably won't sit still while we try and salt and burn him, but I guess we'll have to figure out a way to hold him still when that time comes. Let's go," he said to Kate.

"Where are you going?" Hel asked.

Dean glared at Hel, the person who had put Sam in this danger in the first place. "To get my brother back."

"I'm coming, too," Hel said. "I need to make sure Garmr—this demon—is going to keep his end of the bargain."

Dean couldn't believe Hel still wasn't sorry for what he had done to Sam. Selfish bastard.

"Count me in as well," Caine suddenly said. "I can't get my own brother back, but I can help stop his killer."

Dean examined Caine. It was really strange to hear him speak so civilly while he was in his wolf suit. "Fine, but you're not getting in my car unless you wanna pay to have it vacuumed."

"We need to move. Now." Kate was sniffing the air. "Your brother's scent is stationary."

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"He kept traveling further and further east, but his scent is stable now. He's not moving."

Dean's eyes filled with worry. "He's not moving?" He swallowed, trying very hard not to think of the worst. "Dead people don't move," Dean whispered almost inaudibly.

Kate rolled her eyes, her increased hearing picking up what Dean had said. "Stop being such a drama queen. If your brother were dead he wouldn't be giving off any sort of scent at all, so this is a good thing. He's stopped moving, which means we can make the most of our time and get to him quicker." _And then I can feast on you both._

Dean exhaled an enormous sigh of relief, and in under a minute, he, Kate, and Hel sat in the Impala, and Caine loped alongside the car as they sped off into the dead of the night.

x x x

"Sam… Sam, can you hear me? Wake up."

Sam struggled to lift his eyelids, but they were too heavy. His brain felt like it was filled with cotton, and a welt at the nape of his neck made his head hurt. Again, he tried to open his eyes; his lids were lighter now. The room slowly swam into focus. It was so white, almost blinding. The air was cold. He coughed. His mouth was bone dry, his tongue a thick piece of sandpaper. There was a bandage around his arm… a needle underneath. There were wires connected to all parts of his body.

"Sam, can you hear me?"

Sam turned to face the voice and saw Garmr leaning over him, observing him with wide yellow eyes. He was smiling. Sam started to smile back, but then he stopped. Something was wrong, though he couldn't quite remember what it was. It danced on the edge of his mind just out of reach. He wished his brother were—

Everything from the last twenty-four hours suddenly came into place and Sam realized where he was. He tried to get up, but soon discovered that his arms and legs were strapped to the chair in which he sat. He tried to move his limbs against the leather restraints, but his efforts were fruitless. "What—" he coughed. His voice was weak.

Garmr walked over with a glass of liquid. "Drink this."

Sam was in no position to resist as the glass was pushed against his lips and the contents tipped down his throat. Luckily, it was water. It flowed down his dry throat like an icy current, and Sam greedily welcomed it, not caring as streams of water rolled down his chin as well.

"Better?" Garmr asked when all the water was gone.

"What do you want with me—_AHHH!_" Sam shouted, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Amazing how painful a shock to your left pinkie can be, hmm?" Garmr grinned cheerfully. "Let that serve as a warning. You will speak when spoken to. Although I won't blame you for your crude behavior. After all, you never had a mommy to teach you otherwise."

Sam's temples reddened as he began to shake and jump and move around as much as he could in the chair, but not for long. He felt a shock to his right ear, and it didn't stop until he forced himself to calm down.

"Good boy," Garmr said, pleased. "You learn quick. And to reward you, I suppose I'll answer your question. You see, we have plans for you, Sammy. For you and all the other children like you. But we need to know more about your powers if we are to use them to our full advantage. Right now, it seems your powers only perk up when our demon overlord does something or commands something or causes something, as we found out since you had a vision about one of the werewolves here. But the point, for you, at least, is to basically be able to see any aspect of the future, and to eventually _control_ the future."

Sam's eyes widened. This was crazy. Impossible, even.

"Excited, are you?" Garmr asked. "Then let's get started!" He walked over to a lab table stationed to Sam's right. He lifted a vial of clear solution to eye level, shook it a bit, eyed it again, then walked over to the machine that connected to all the tubes that were poking into Sam's skin to make sure it was working properly. "This is a little concoction I've prepared for you," he said, holding up the vial. "We've been monitoring you. Bet you didn't know that, hmm?"

Sam didn't say anything, afraid of being shocked again.

"It seems that your visions are most vibrant when you're awake, with your eyes—" Garmr grabbed Sam's head and attached it to an apparatus that jutted out from the top of the chair. Then he sharply pulled back on Sam's eyelids, but when he let go, Sam's eyelids remained pulled back, held in place by a pair of forceps. "—Are open," Garmr finished. "Your visions are strongest when your eyes are open."

Sam's eyes began to dry up, but when that happened, a liquid would drop onto the surfaces of his eyes, moistening them. He wondered how long it would take to train himself not to blink anymore.

"This is just a test," Garmr said, explaining the procedure as though he were a normal doctor. "It takes about ten minutes for this to get through your system, and once the process is complete, you should be able to see into the future. Into _every_ future."

Sam's forehead creased in confusion.

Garmr read Sam's thoughts. "Yes, there is more than one future, as you will soon find out." With that, he poured the vial of solution into one of the tubes and watched as it traveled into Sam's body. A couple minutes later, Sam's vision began to ebb and he began to see things that weren't there.

_He saw himself headbutt Garmr, watched Garmr fall on the controls that locked his restraints in place, then watched himself get out of the chair and run out of the room. Then he watched himself headbutt Garmr again, but this time when Garmr fell, he fell on the operating table and was speared by the tools that lay on it, although it didn't harm Garmr since he was possessed. Sam watched himself headbutt Garmr again, and this time he saw himself lose his consciousness from the force of the impact._

Suddenly, Sam was pulled out of his thoughts as he received a shock to his right leg.

"Miraculous, isn't it?" Garmr smiled warmly. "But I can't have you see a way out of this. Escape is what you're thinking of right now, isn't it?"

Sam didn't say anything. His head was spinning from the last shock.

"Just to ensure your mind doesn't wander until I want it to wander," Garmr said, adjusting the dials on the machine next to him, "I'll continue the shock therapy for the remaining seven minutes."

Every few seconds, Sam felt an electric shock to one of his appendages. Usually it was a finger or a nipple, but sometimes it was… lower. Most of the shocks were just that—shocking—although a few were quite painful. Sam's heart raced. His muscles refused to unclench, waiting for the next jolt.

His mind kept trying to see into the future, but the shocks prevented him from doing so. If the shocks weren't so painful, his vision switching back and forth from seeing the present and trying to see the future would definitely have left him disoriented enough.

Sam sensed that the seven minutes were nearly finished when the pressure from the tube of incoming fluid slowly began to decrease.

He felt tired, beaten, half crazed, and scared out of his wits. But beneath it all, he was determined. Then he got a shock to his scrotum, which eclipsed everything else.

Garmr walked over. "Sam, can you hear me?"

Sam made a gurgling noise as his big toe received a shock. "Yes," he gasped.

"What's today's date?"

"It's, umm…" Sam tried to remember. His nausea intensified. "I think it's…_AAAAHH!_" His right hand had received a shock. "It's…um, July… July…"

"Close enough," Garmr said in a mocking tone. "All right. I'm going to stop the torture in a little while. But first, listen closely, okay?"

"Okay," Sam said weakly. Anything. Sam would do anything for this man if he'd make it stop, if only for a minute. Or a second.

"I'm overloading your system because I don't want you to get away," Garmr explained again. "And if you get away, I might have to go after another, more easily attainable Winchester. Like your brother."

Sam thought he was going to vomit. He wanted to close his eyes and make it all go away, but he couldn't. His lids strained uselessly against the forceps, burning with pain.

"Sam." Garmr lightly slapped Sam's face. "I know it's hard, but stay with me. As long as you work with me, nothing bad will happen to Dean. All right?"

Sam realized, belatedly, that it was his turn to talk. "Okay," he croaked.

"Good." Garmr turned away, walking out of Sam's field of vision, and a moment later, the shocks ceased. Sam tried to relax, but his muscles wouldn't obey—every tendon was as taut as a piano wire. His heart hammered in his ears, pumping blood to his muscles in anticipation of more pain.

Sam took a deep breath, held it for a second, and then exhaled through his nose. Gradually, everything else fell into place. His heart slowed and he was able to unclench his jaw. He was okay.

Suddenly, Sam's body was consumed with a pain unlike anything he'd ever felt, tearing through every part in his body. And then, just as quickly as it had descended upon him, it was gone. Sam clamped his mouth shut, biting his tongue, tasting blood. He was so tired. All he wanted to do was close his eyes. Sam caught his breath after a minute, then slowly unclenched his teeth.

"Sorry about that, Sam," Garmr said. "I just needed to remind you that even though the torture has ceased, I still have electrodes attached to your body. Some deliver quite painful shocks, some read your heart rate and other bioelectric signals." He pointed to a wire. "This tells me whether you're lying. And if you lie," Garmr trailed off.

Sam felt his muscles clench again, ready for another shock, but it didn't come.

Garmr chuckled. "_If_ you lie, I'll know it, and then you'll know it. So do me a favor and cooperate. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Sam rasped. His voice was ripped and torn from his earlier screams. He wondered what it would sound like after another few hours.

"Excellent!" Garmr chirped. He walked over to Sam and placed a coin in his palm. "I want you to flip the coin, and I want you to make it land heads up."

"How?" Sam asked.

"With your mind," Garmr said. He used his fingers to close Sam's hand. "Focus on the objective and make it happen."

Sam swallowed, unsure of what he was doing, but as soon as he began to think about the coin in his hand, he suddenly saw how to make it land heads up.

_There was a slight current in the air from the vents—it was almost imperceptible, but Sam could see it moving the oxygen and nitrogen molecules this way and that. The coin was a quarter, and the heads side was 0.00128 grams heavier than the tails side. The periphery of the pattern on the heads side was also larger and less aerodynamic than the tails side. But these factors were trivial when compared to the force of his fingers and the torque he applied to his cuffed wrist, which were collectively responsible for 98.756 percent of the coin's trajectory, although the trajectory was only 58.24510 percent responsible for whether the coin came up heads or tails._

_To fully understand the causes of the outcome, Sam analyzed the makeup of the coin (the core was 100 percent copper; the face was a 75 percent/25 percent copper-nickel alloy) as well as of the floor (thirty-six-square-inch linoleum tiles). These two factors accounted for 37.84322 percent of the coin's final outcome. Another 0.55164 percent stemmed from their proximity to the magnetic poles, 1.12588 percent from the speed of the earth's rotation, and 2.23415 percent from the cleanliness of the floor._

_The remaining 0.00001 percent was noise—if there were 100,000 coin flips, Sam would miss only once. He took all this information into consideration, selected an appropriate path, and—_

Sam flicked his index and middle fingers upward and launched the coin into the air. He watched it tumble through space, the light playing across the two faces. Light, dark, heads, tails. When it landed on the floor, there was a light _smack_ and then a _ching, ching, ching, brrrrrrrrm_ as it bounced, bounced, bounced and rattled to a stop somewhere outside his field of vision.

Garmr hurried over to where it landed. When he picked it up, he was smiling.

"Fifty-fifty chance," Sam said, as much to Garmr as to himself. "It doesn't prove anything."

"True," Garmr said, with excitement. "But if this coin landed on heads another forty-nine times, I think it would. Please continue."

Garmr dropped the coin into Sam's shackled hand. Again, Sam closed his eyes, but this time he barely needed to search for the right branch. It came to him easily. Again, he flicked up his fingers. Again, the coin flew through the air and bounced onto the floor.

Again, it was heads.

"Again," Garmr commanded.

Drop. Flip. Glint. Land. Bounce.

Another flip. Another heads. And then another. And another. And another. Heads. Heads. Heads. In between flips, Sam found his consciousness slipping away, but each time, Garmr woke him up with a quick jolt. He was also punished every time he tried to look into the future to find a way to escape. He stopped after the shock from his second attempt.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, they were done. Sam was dizzy and bathed in sweat, but he forced himself to look at Garmr after he flipped the fiftieth head in as many tries. Garmr's smile slid from his face, briefly replaced by another emotion.

It was hunger.

"Incredible," Garmr finally murmured. "I think it's time to make this a permanent part of your genetic make-up. Our demon overlord shall be very pleased, indeed." He began to pick up bottles and used eyedroppers to add drops of this and that to the test tube with which he was working, but suddenly, his head jerked up as if he sensed something. He stood frozen for a bit, but a moment later he was moving again. "Your brother's coming for you," Garmr said matter-of-factly as he closed all the open vials before him.

Sam felt his heart soar. Whether or not Garmr was lying didn't matter because even the false hope of Dean coming to rescue him was enough to assuage all the fears from his current predicament.

Garmr walked across the room, grabbed a syringe, and poked it into Sam's arm without warning.

"Sleep," Garmr said. "Paul, watch him."

A guard with glowing red eyes, presumably Paul, walked into the room. Sam briefly thought about how odd and funny it was that Garmr—the demon—should have a guard named Paul. Then he began to think about how cool it would be to fall asleep with his eyes wide open.

As his consciousness drifted away, he wasn't able to think about much else. He felt Paul remove the forceps from his eyelids, and his lids were so heavy they immediately closed shut.

The last thing Sam heard was Garmr whispering into his ear. "You'll have to excuse me for a bit. I need to go take care of your brother."

**Author's Note:** Thanks to Darren Shan's _Cirque du Freak_ series for the "Charna's guts!" phrase and to Adam Fawer's _Improbable_ for the quarter-flip sequence. And I also apologize for what I did to Sammy. Believe it or not, I'm actually a Sammy girl, lol! Anyway, next chapter will be up shortly. :) And thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing!


	5. Unusual Suspects

**Chapter 5: Unusual Suspects**

"Black blood of Harnon Oan!" Kate yelled through the noise filtering out of the Impala. "Could you turn that off?"

Dean looked at her, offended. "Not feelin' the Wango Tango?"

Kate glared at him in response.

_I guess not_, Dean thought to himself, quickly turning away from the sour vampire. He wasn't planning to turn off the music, but all of the sudden, Ted Nugent started to break up. "Static," Dean whispered, turning down the volume.

He slowed the Impala and looked out the window. The trees around them looked innocent enough, but something demonic was obviously hidden inside the forest.

"Stop!" Hel called from the back seat. 

Dean slammed down on the brakes. If Caine hadn't been stopped ahead of the car, Dean might've completely missed the shiny black surface of a building just slightly peaking out of the thick grove of trees before them.

"Well, I'll be damned," Kate said, also surprised and impressed by the hidden edifice.

Hel glared at her. "You already are."

Kate made a rude hand gesture at Hel as Dean parked the car on the side of the road. 

"Everybody ready?" Dean asked. He smiled as he pocketed his keys.

No one answered him, but he hadn't really expected an answer. It was an unnecessary question since none of the four unlikely companions would be here if he or she wasn't ready for this, but filling up the nervous silence was what Dean always did to mask any pre-battle jitters.

Kate leaned as far away as possible from Dean as he reached across her seat to open the glove compartment. "Salt," he explained almost apologetically as he produced a bag of salt from the glove compartment.

Once Dean checked his guns, made sure the machete hung securely against his side, and stuffed the bag of salt into a pocket inside his jacket, Dean, Kate and Hel climbed out of the car.

Dean locked the Impala, but knew it didn't really make a difference at this point in the game. He brought his index and middle fingers together, kissed them, and then tapped his fingers on the roof of his car.

"Let's rock and roll," he said to the others.

x x x

"Man, why's it so fuckin' dark in here?" Dean squinted as he tried to find his way through the dark building.

Three eerie pairs of eyes pierced through the darkness and unblinkingly looked in his direction. "I can see fine," Kate said matter-of-factly.

Hel and Caine concurred.

Dean groaned. "Well, if you guys are so accustomed, why don't _you_ lead?"

Kate stalked past him and began walking ahead. 

"Ooh, look at me! I'm so supernatural, I can see in the dark!" Dean said grumpily. He walked forward until he ran into Kate's hard chest.

"Would you shut up?" she hissed. 

"Boobs." Dean grinned.

Kate took a step back since it seemed Dean wasn't going to take a step back from her chest any time soon. Before she could fire back a retort, a bright spotlight flickered on a few feet in front of them.

Dean could finally see the room now. He and Kate were standing an arm's length apart, and Caine and Hel were standing on either side of them, a few meters apart. The floor, ceiling, and walls were painted a sticky shade of black, almost as though they'd been coated in tar, and the room featured nothing else but a hallway straight ahead. However, the hallway was currently inaccessible due to the person who stood in front of it.

"Garmr Medgard," Dean drawled in a deadly voice. He stepped out from behind Kate, who was taken by surprise when she saw him. Dean's face was emotionless, his eyes were cold, and his lips were pursed into a line across his face. He appeared as though he'd never smiled in his life. "We've been lookin' for you, you son of a bitch."

"One cuss word. Minus thirty," Garmr said.

"What the fuck are you talking about? Where's Sam?" Dean shouted.

"_Two_ cuss words," Garmr said in an amused tone. "All right. Minus sixty." 

Dean drew his eyebrows together, confused by Garmr's counting. And where was Sam? Dean had expected to find Garmr with Sam, but this was obviously not the case.

As if he'd read Dean's mind, Garmr waved his hand and a small television lowered down from the ceiling. He removed a remote from his pocket and aimed it at the screen. It flickered to life.

On the monitor, Dean saw a tired-looking man strapped down to a chair, an IV tube snaked down his arm, and many wires were attached to random parts of his body. It was Sam. He seemed to have aged ten years since Dean had last seen him.

"What did you—" Dean began to say. 

"Tut, tut! Watch your tongue, Dean," Garmr warned. Then he turned toward the television. "Paul?"

An average-looking man wearing a police uniform walked into the screen. He could've passed as a normal human if he didn't have glowing red eyes.

"Please attend to Sam Winchester. Level three for sixty seconds."

Dean watched the television screen. For the first few seconds, nothing happened. Sam appeared to be sleeping, lying as restfully as one could with his arms, legs, and head restrained by leather straps. Then Paul put something in Sam's mouth and stepped offscreen. A shiver ran down Dean's spine, and Sam began convulsing. His hands clenched and unclenched as the electric current ripped through his body.

There was no sound connected to the images, which somehow made them all the more horrifying.

"Stop! Stop it!" Dean yelled, knowing it would do him no use.

Garmr glanced at his watch. "Just another fifty seconds, Dean. It's almost over."

Dean wanted to turn away from the horrible vision, but knowing it was Sam who was being tortured, Dean kept his eyes glued to the screen. A few times, he involuntarily tried to avert his eyes from Sam's twitching body, but his pupils always redirected themselves toward the screen.

Finally, it ended. Sam stopped convulsing. He lay silently weeping, tears streaming down his face. Then Dean saw the final humiliation: a dark stain spread between his brother's legs. 

Garmr walked forward and stopped when he stood an inch away from Dean's. It took every ounce of control for Dean not to spit in his face right then.

"Why so quiet—?"

"Where is my brother?" Dean ground out every word.

"Right there," Garmr said, pointing to the screen. "And unless you and your charming…" Garmr eyed the two werewolves and vampire standing near Dean, "…_posse_ leave right now, little Sammy's going to be in a _world_ of pain. Those sixty seconds right there will seem like pure _bliss_ to him when I'm finished."

"You wouldn't," Dean shook his head. "You need him. You need his abilities."

"Yes, but all I need to do is make sure the boy doesn't die. And trust me, I am not kind enough to grant him death. Not even when he begs me for it."

"You son of a—"

"Careful!" Garmr chirped. He pointed the remote at the screen, waiting to see if Dean was going to finish his insult.

Dean closed his mouth and his shoulders slumped. Garmr stepped back, taking this as a sign of defeat, but that was when Dean whipped out his pistol and shot the television screen. Then he fired at Garmr's hand, destroying the remote control. That would take care of Sammy for the time being.

Garmr's eyes grew large, and a heinous, sickeningly oversized grin crept up his face. "You shouldn't have done that, Dean," he said in a low voice, shaking his head. He lunged at Dean, and Dean grabbed his machete, preparing for impact, but Garmr was knocked off course when Caine rammed into him. Garmr fell to the ground, but immediately pushed the werewolf off him. Caine hit the wall and lay dazed on the floor. 

Garmr lunged at Dean again, and this time he wasn't stopped. Dean dropped the gun and machete he'd been holding as Garmr slammed him against the wall, pinning him there with one hand. Away from the spotlight, Dean was practically blind. All he could see was Garmr, but it wouldn't be for long. Dean's muscles clenched as Garmr drew his fist back, but just as Garmr was about to punch Dean, Garmr's head was suddenly _gone_!

Dean felt his mouth fall open as he stared into Garmr's neck, and then he felt his stomach squirm and his eyes bulge as he heard Garmr's head roll off to the side and start yelling. A severed head was _yelling_! 

But Garmr's body still had Dean pinned to the wall. "What the—" Dean struggled against the hand on his chest, but the more he struggled, the harder Garmr's hand pushed into him. Dean began to wheeze, and he feared the hand would either push him into the wall, or actually push into his chest soon.

"Fight all you want, but I can still control my body!" Garmr's voice shouted through the darkness.

Something quick as lightning flashed across Dean's face, and suddenly, Garmr's body fell away from his hand. A moment later, Kate stepped up to Dean and ripped off the hand that was still stuck to his chest. She was holding Dean's machete. 

Dean stumbled to his feet. He hunched over his knees to regain control over his breathing. Then he looked to the ground and screamed when he saw Garmr's severed head glaring up at him. With all his might, he kicked it across the room. He waited to hear it hit the ground, but instead, he heard a soft thud.

A moment later, Hel appeared out of the darkness, followed by Caine, who was holding onto Garmr's head. He used one hand to hold onto his hair, and the other to cover his eyes. This way, there was no way Garmr could effectively control his body since he couldn't see it. 

"Go!" Caine shouted at Dean and Kate. "Go get your brother!"

"We've got some business to take care of," Hel said, eyeing Garmr in an odd manner.

Dean hesitated for a moment, not sure if he should leave before the demon in Garmr's body had been destroyed.

"We'll take it from here!" Caine shouted. "Go!"

The vision of his little brother from minutes ago flashed across his mind. Before he knew it, Dean was sprinting across the room toward the hallway, and he could hear Kate following after him.

Once Dean and Kate's footsteps turned to silence, Caine walked as far away as possible from Garmr's body and finally turned the severed head to face him.

Garmr was seething. "Gentlemen." He growled by way of greeting them.

"We had a deal," Hel said, jumping straight to the point. "We get you the boy, you relieve us of our curse."

Caine simply wanted to kill the demon. This thing had taken Abel's life, and Caine was here purely for revenge. But to lead a life free of this wretched curse—to be a real human again… It's what Abel would have wanted, so Caine agreed with Hel. "You promised," he said. "You said none of the werewolves in town would have to live as werewolves anymore."

Suddenly, Garmr's expression softened and he stopped glaring at them. "I did promise, didn't I?"

Caine and Hel resolutely looked at the head.

"As you wish," Garmr said. He looked across the room at his body and waved his arm. A moment later, both werewolves stiffened, their eyes grew wide, and then they fell to the ground.

Garmr's head landed a few feet away from the werewolves, and he cursed in annoyance as he felt the skull crack. He would have to fix that later when he had time to reattach this head onto its body.

From the other end of the room, his body walked over and picked up his head. The headless body held the head like a baby as he examined the werewolves on the ground. He snorted in disgust and kicked Hel's arm as he walked past them. The spotlight faded out as soon as he disappeared into the dark hallway.

x x x

Dean had his machete at his side again. He and Kate now jogged down the hallway, which was lit only by flickering lamps hanging from the ceiling. They stopped at every new corridor so Kate could point to the direction from which Sam's scent was coming. It was getting harder and harder now that Sam was close. When they stopped next, Dean suddenly looked up at Kate. "Listen, uh, I'm usually not so chummy with vampires, but, just, well… thanks for saving my ass back there."

Kate's nostrils were flared as she sniffed the air for Sam's scent. It looked like they would have to turn left.

She looked at Dean from the corner of her eye. "I didn't do it to benefit you. I did it so _I_ can have you for myself later."

Dean considered this for a bit. "Oh. Because you couldn't have me if I were dead since then I'd be full of dead man's blood."

Kate made a face. "You're not worried I'm going to take you and your brother for myself once this is all over?"

"Not really," Dean shrugged. "We got away once, didn't we?"

"And you're counting on a second time?" Kate asked mockingly.

"We weren't even counting on the first time, so it can't really hurt to actually be counting on the second time," Dean said. "And who's to say I won't kill you first?"

"Me," Kate said, looking Dean squarely in the eyes.

Before Dean could reply, they heard a scuffling noise from the left. "What was that?" 

Suddenly, Kate was swept off her feet and was in a stranglehold. She struggled to free herself, but the werewolf who held her matched her supernatural strength. Kate was unable to get away.

Dean immediately drew out his gun. He cocked it back and aimed it straight ahead.

"Move an inch and I'll snap her neck."

"Paul, right?" Dean said, recognizing the man from the television screen in the other room.

"Don't move!" Paul shouted.

"As long as you quit movin', too," Dean said calmly.

In response, Paul tightened his grip around Kate's neck. "You move and the fang dies."

"You move and—" Dean closed one eye, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger of his gun. The bullet flew through the air and just barely clipped Kate's ear before burying itself into Paul's chest. "—You die," Dean finished.

Shocked, Paul let go of Kate, who jumped away and grabbed her bleeding ear in pain. A little bit of the dead man's blood from the bullet had gotten into the wound on her ear. "You idiot, you missed his heart by a mile!"

"Chill—" Dean began to say as he aimed the gun again, but suddenly, Paul froze, then crumpled to the ground. "What the hell," Dean said bluntly.

Kate closed her eyes and strained her hearing. "He's dead," she said, opening her eyes. "There's no heartbeat—" Her eyes suddenly widened.

"What is it?" Dean asked, alarmed.

Kate sniffed the air quickly, moving her head left to right. "I can't smell the other two anymore," she said. 

"Caine and Hel?" Dean said.

"They're dead," Kate replied, confused.

Dean recalled how Garmr had been practically powerless and not even completely intact when he'd left the front of the building, and now he'd managed to kill two werewolves?

Dean swallowed as he bent down to pull Kate to her feet. "We've got to hurry. That thing's probably coming after us next." He hurried down the hallway, and Kate followed, thinking about Sam's scent, but also about how she hadn't even flinched when Dean had picked her up from the ground. What was going on?

But she didn't have time to think on it now. Sam's scent suddenly shifted. "Wait!" she called out to Dean, who had run ahead of her. "We've passed him, his scent is receding." 

Dean sprinted back toward Kate, and they both eyed the only door in the hallway.

"Your brother's got to be in there," Kate said as they both stood before the door.

Dean took a deep breath. His hands were trembling as he reached for the doorknob, but when he turned it, he discovered that the door was locked. He aimed his gun at the doorknob, but before firing, he said, "Would it be too much to ask for a head start?"

"What?" Kate asked.

"I know that if Sam's in there, you're free to—" 

"You would've gotten a head start anyway," Kate said, looking away. "I can't take you now since you smell too much like me. It would be sickening to suck on your blood while your skin gave off my scent."

Dean swallowed. "And what about Sam?" 

"I'm going to take you both at the same time," she said with a straight face. "I can wait a while longer."

Dean knew better than to thank her because she wasn't doing him any favors, but he still couldn't help but give her an appreciative glance. He recomposed his features, and then fired five rounds at the doorknob before the door finally swung open…

**Author's Note:** Superduper cliffhanger of doom! Actually, this fic was originally supposed to be 5 chapters, but the last part of the finale ended up being too long! Hence, CLIFFHANGER! And, again, SO SORRY for torturing Sam! I really am a Sammy girl! It's... it's all for the plot! Anyway, the next (and last) chapter will probably be up tomorrow. Look forward to it:D


	6. The Taste of Ink

**Chapter 6: The Taste Of Ink**

Just as he'd seen on the television screen in the front room, Sam was strapped to a chair. His eyes were slightly open, but he seemed to be in a trance, for his head lolled from side to side and he drooled out of the corner of his mouth. Every few seconds his body would twitch, then he'd moan, and then he'd go still again.

"Sam!" Dean shouted, running into the room. "Oh, God. What've those bastards done to you?"

Kate stepped into the room, but immediately gagged. "They've got him on drugs or something," Kate said.

Dean was momentarily stunned when he turned around to see Kate walking over to the lab table to examine the solutions scattered across it. What was she still doing here?

Kate picked up bottle after bottle, peering into them, shaking them, and even sniffing them. "Take out the IV. They're drugging him with LSD, or amphetamines of some kind of exotic dopamine agent."

Dean felt his mouth fall open a little. "And you know this _how_?"

Kate pursed her lips. "I was in medical school when I was blooded."

Dean didn't press the issue any further. He gently tugged on the IV in Sam's arm.

"Ah!" Sam suddenly shouted. Something had stung his arm.

"Sorry, Sammy," Dean apologized as softly as possible. "Just taking out your IV. Just hang on, okay? Almost done."

The steady beeping coming from the machine near Kate suddenly began to act up.

"What's happening?" Dean asked.

Kate gave him a small smile in response. "It's his EKG. Looks like he's happy to see you."

"Dean," Sam whispered faintly. His eyes began to roll back into his head.

"I'm here, Sammy. I'm here. I'm gonna get you out of here, okay?" Dean carefully shook Sam's shoulder. "Just stay with me, Sammy."

_Dean_. The name was such a small word, but at the moment, it filled up Sam's entire being. Dean was here to save him, like always. Dean was here, so everything would be all right. Dean would save the day. The hero of the story was here. And now all Sam wanted to do was sleep. He was so exhausted and spent, and moreover, every time he kept his eyes open too long, he'd end up seeing things that weren't there. He was tired of it all, and with Dean here at his side, Sam wanted nothing more than to fall asleep under his protective eyes. He was finally safe.

Just as Sam felt himself lose consciousness, he was pulled back by another stabbing pain. Blood welled up from his arm after the needle of the IV slid out. Sam reflexively tried to bend his arm to stop the bleeding, but leather straps bit into his wrist.

"Hold on, lemme get those," Dean said. He started to use the edge of the machete to try and saw away the leather straps, but then he saw the controls, pressed a button, and the straps immediately loosened enough to where Sam could slip out of them.

Sam experimentally flexed his arms. They crawled with pins and needles, and he still felt tired and slow.

"Uh, do these guys have reason to believe your brother has telepathic abilities?" Kate suddenly asked.

"No," Dean answered almost too quickly.

Kate looked at him curiously. "Well, I think they tried to use him as an eye into the future," she said. She flipped through the pages of notes on the table. "They were drugging him with LSD, but they were pumping him with dopamine."

"And?" Dean asked. He had no clue what Kate was talking about.

"Well, the LSD was so they could control him because it caused him to temporarily lose proper control over his body. And dopamine is produced in the human body. It's used for several things." She ripped out a page of the notes and showed Dean a technical diagram of Sam's brain. "In the frontal lobe of the brain, dopamine controls the flow of information from other areas of the brain. But by systematically increasing the dopamine, and by altering a few other aspects of the brain so that the increase in dopamine doesn't make his system melt down, these notes make it look like they were trying to use him to control the future."

Dean looked at his Sam worriedly. They were trying to get Sam to control the future? Was that even possible? "That's ridiculous," he muttered to himself.

Dean gingerly wrapped his arms around his brother as he pulled him to his feet in one swift motion. Sam blinked wildly, confused by the sudden movement, then crumpled to the floor as he threw up.

"Well, at least he's getting the drugs out of his system." Kate cringed as she walked over to the boys. She looked at Sam. The boy looked pathetic. So pathetic she almost felt sorry for him.

Dean scrunched up his nose as he bent down to help Sam to his feet again. Dean let go of him once they were standing, but Sam immediately began to wobble on his legs, so Dean slung one of Sam's arms over his shoulder and began to walk toward the door.

"Let's get out of here," Dean said.

Sam seemed to be staring ahead, intently focusing on the door. "He's coming," Sam wheezed.

Kate looked at Sam. "No, your brother's already here."

When Sam didn't blink, realization dawned on Dean. "No, he's having a vision."

"You mean he really _can_ see into the future?" Kate said, shocked.

Dean stood still, waiting for Sam's episode to pass. "Don't look so surprised. You're a _vampire_, and you're surprised just because he's got ESP?"

Kate was about to answer when Sam came out of his trance. "He's coming," he warbled over and over again.

Dean continued to walk toward the door and kept Sam talking. "Who's coming, Sam?"

"He's… He's…" Sam's body suddenly went limp, but his eyes were wide open.

"Sam!" Dean shouted in panic. He dragged his brother along.

Kate opened the door, but as soon as she did, Sam sprung back to life and began to scream at the top of his lungs. "HE'S COMING! HE'S COMING! HE'S COMING!"

"Dammit, Sam!" Dean pulled his brother out the door, looking at him in confusion, but not for long.

A sickeningly cheerful voice cut through the darkness. "And now I'm here!"

As soon as these words were uttered, Sam began to blink and his body started to relax again. Dean carefully placed him on the floor, making sure Sam could sit up against the wall before he turned around.

Dean gasped when his eyes landed on Garmr. His head was in the arms of his headless body. He had started to turn a faded shade of green, and maggots were crawling all over his body.

Instinctively, Dean grabbed his gun from the back of his pants and pointed it at Garmr. For this level of stupidity, he could've shot _himself_. Guns weren't going to work on this demon!

"Big mistake, Dean," Garmr said. With the wave of his arm, Dean's pistol flew out of his hand and into Garmr's, and without flinching, Garmr cocked it back and shot Sam just below the shoulder.

"_AAAAHHH!_" Sam yelled, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Sam!" Dean yelled as he landed in a heap next to his brother. "Sam, can you hear me?"

Sam's eyes were wide open and his breath trembled as he replied. "The light…"

"Oh, God. Sammy, stay the fuck away from that light! Don't you go near it—!"

Dean's attention was suddenly ripped away from Sam when he heard movement behind him. He turned around to discover that, for the second time tonight, Kate was in a stranglehold. Her eyes were filled with terror as Garmr steadily tightened his grip around her neck. He had every intention of decapitating her with his bare hands.

"Mah—" Sam choked. "Machete," he managed to say before he was consumed in a fit of coughing.

Dean gawked at him for a moment. Sam was coughing and coughing, but his eyes were wide open and unblinking the whole time. Then he heard Kate choking on the other side, so he grabbed the machete, and aimed for Garmr as best as he could. But just as he launched it, Sam's leg shot out and kicked Dean, causing the machete to severely veer off course and strike a water pipe.

"Sam!" Dean wailed. That had been their one chance to get the upper hand.

But Sam didn't respond. His eyes were closed now.

When the machete struck the water pipe, Garmr had been squeezing Kate's neck with one arm and holding onto his head with the other. He noticed too late as the pipe burst into two pieces, unexpectedly drenching him in cold water. Surprised, he let go of Kate, who fell gasping to the ground and crawled away. The two pieces of the water pipe sprayed water where Garmr was standing, and eventually, the water pressure swerved one of the pipes into a wire that suspended a lamp from the ceiling. The wire was no match for the blow from the pipe, and Garmr had barely registered he was drenched in water when the lamp swung through the air and hit him square in the chest, immediately electrocuting him.

Dean's mouth fell open as he watched what was happening, and Kate's words ran through his mind. Was Sam really _controlling_ the future right now? Because the water pipe and the wire and the lamp… it was all just so bizarre!

Just in time, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the bag of salt. "Kate, get away!" He shouted at the wet vampire. Then Dean threw handfuls of salt at Garmr as he continued to shake and convulse from the electric currents running through him.

Eventually, the electricity stopped, except for the occasional spark snapping here and there. Garmr's body was completely black, burned to a crisp. His remains were still smoking, and suddenly, the smoke began to turn black. Dean realized what was happening and moved back as the demon that had been using Garmr Medgard's body as a shell rushed out of him in a thick cloud of black smoke. It hovered near the ceiling for a few seconds before it seemed to consume itself and disappear.

"Dean," Kate said. She flinched a bit. It was the first time she had really called him by his name. It felt weird on her tongue. "I don't think your brother's—"

"Sam!" Dean's eyes were plates on his face as he rushed to his brother's side. "Wake up, Sam!" Dean shouted as tears welled up in his eyes. "Sammy, c'mon!"

"He's still alive," Kate said calmly. "But I can hear his heart and it's getting slower and slower every few minutes."

_Protect Sammy_, Dean said to himself. He gently placed his arms under his brother and scooped Sam up. He sagged under his brother's weight, and Sam's lanky body lolled in every way possible, but Dean ignored this and staggered forward.

"Let me," Kate suddenly said, looking away. "I'm stronger than you are."

Dean exhaled through his nostrils as he took large steps away from Kate. "I'm fine."

"Just let me carry him to your car. He needs quick attention, Dean," Kate said.

"No," he said through gritted teeth.

"Then you leave me no choice," Kate sighed.

When Dean turned around to face Kate, he ran into her chest again, but this time, it was because she was scooping him up into her arms. "I'll carry you both." She swiftly and quickly walked through the many corridors.

"Put us down!" Dean yelled.

Kate continued to walk as she spoke with Dean. "I am not going to let you kill your brother and then come after me in a mad state of revenge. That's _my_ job, remember?"

Dean glared daggers at her.

"Besides, it's not like you two are heavy, if that's what you're worried about. You feel like a stack of library books."

"This is humiliating," Dean glowered. But he didn't say anything else after that. Every time he wanted to, his eyes fell on Sam's unconscious face. He had to make this right.

Dean was grateful that the front room was so dark. He had no desire to look at the dead bodies of Caine and Hel.

In no time at all, they were outside the building. Kate set the boys down and helped Dean get towels from the Impala's trunk and place them in the back seat. Dean carefully laid Sam on his back, and then closed the door.

"One more thing," he said. He found a large rock on the ground and pitched it through one of the windows. Then he found another rock on the ground, wrapped it with a towel, used a lighter to light the towel on fire, and then threw that into the window as well. "Takes care of the slightly shady evidence," Dean said.

He turned to look at Kate, but she wasn't there. He spun around and looked at the areas before him, but Kate had disappeared. She was nowhere to be seen.

Dean looked at the building again. Smoke began billowing out of the broken window. With one last scan of the area, he unlocked the driver's side door of the Impala, started the engine, and drove off.

x x x

Kate stepped out from behind a tree and watched as Dean's car rounded a turn and disappeared into the night. They were moving toward the next town over. It would take them ten minutes of driving through empty roads before they ran into any buildings with people in them, and fifteen minutes before they'd get to the hospital.

She could still hear the engine in the distance. She could take them both right now. They were weak, defenseless, unsuspecting. It would be easy.

That's what every instinct in her body told her, but for some reason, she just didn't want to listen to her instincts this time.

With one last look at the burning building, she began to walk through the forest toward her home.

Kate had lied to Dean when she'd explained why she was giving the boys a head start. Truthfully, she was still baffled over why she didn't flinch away when Dean had helped her to her feet earlier. Other than the obvious, the reason vampires lived in groups situated far from humans was because it was absolutely unbearable to be near a human without killing it on the spot.

But this was mind-boggling. In the car when Dean had simply hovered _near_ her, she had moved away from him, but in the hallway, he had _touched_ her arm, and it hadn't affected her at all.

Her mind raced through the events from the night. The demon had had Dean pinned to the wall, but she had saved him. At the time, she'd done this only to make sure she could be the one to kill him. And then the filthy werewolf guard had caught her, but Dean had saved her, but it was definitely because he needed Kate to find his brother. But what really left her disconcerted was the final confrontation with Garmr.

"_Kate, get away!"_

Kate had found Sam, the werewolves were dead, so their bargain was complete. She had told Dean that she was going to kill him and his brother the first chance she got, yet Dean was still fighting for her safety.

Why?

But the burning question only served to swing her full-circle and back to the initial question. Why was she letting the Winchesters get away again?

When Kate returned to the barn, she tried to enter as quietly as possible, but it was around three in the morning, so the vampires inside were wide awake anyway. Everyone seemed to have fully recovered from the dead man's blood, and once they saw she'd returned, they all began hovering around her until someone dared to ask about what they were all wondering.

"Did you get 'em?"

Upon hearing the question, all the vampires wore hungry smiles on their faces. They hadn't been in on the kill, but they still wanted all the juicy details.

"Tell us how they screamed," one begged.

"Which one did you take first?" another asked.

"Tell me you sucked on their eyeballs!"

"Did you torture them first?"

The questions came one after another until Kate finally threw her arms in the air to silence them all. They looked at her, waiting for an answer. She set her face. "They got away."

The group seemed to groan in unison, and after the initial disappointment of the news, they all began to suggest ways in which they could immediately start to track the Winchesters before they got too far away.

"No!" Kate growled.

Everyone stopped speaking and stared at her, bewildered. Kate's eyes were filled with fire, her eyebrows were slanted down toward her nose, and her second set of fangs just faintly peaked out through her lips.

"No one will go after them," she said sternly as she walked toward her room. She opened the door and stood in the frame. "They're off-limits. The Winchesters are _mine_."

If only she could figure out what that exactly meant.

x x x

Fifteen minutes later, Dean skidded to a halt in front of St. Joseph's Hospital. He left the car parked in front of the emergency room, scooped Sam into his arms, ran into the building and set him down on the first stretcher he saw.

"Hey!" A nurse complained.

"Move it!" Dean growled. People stood frozen against the walls as Dean hurtled himself through the hospital. Sam's long legs knocked into people, but Dean didn't have time to apologize.

When he caught sight of the front desk, Dean sprinted toward it. All the attendants looked up at him when he got closer. "I need help!" Dean shouted. "My brother! He's been shot!"

Once he'd announced what was going on, it was like someone pushed the fast-forward button. Two doctors whisked Sam away through a pair of swinging doors, and a nurse led Dean to a chair and handed him several forms and a pen.

Dean scribbled through the forms, looking at his fake IDs several times to get the information correct. About forty-five minutes later, he returned the forms to the front desk. The woman there asked him for a method of payment.

Dean looked through his wallet and pulled out the first MasterCard he found, which belonged to a Mr. Padalecki. Dean sometimes wondered how people even believed these cards were real. _Padalecki_? What kind of name was that?

When Dean turned to go back to his chair, a doctor stopped him. "Sir?"

Dean looked up at a tall man with glasses and a receding hairline.

"We've stabilized your brother, but we need to know what happened," he trailed off.

Dean did the first thing he could think of. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the FBI badge that was still there. "We're with the FBI," he said a little shakily as he swiftly opened and closed the badge. "We were just outside of town investigating that homicide case. We got a lead on the killer and we followed him to some abandoned building in the woods. One thing led to another and…"

The doctor had barely had a chance to look at Dean's badge, but he still looked confused. "Your brother's been injected with drugs. We thought at first he had taken them himself, but the dopamine levels in his brain are abnormal. There's no way he could've done that himself."

Dean nodded like this was all new. "Doc, can you help him?"

"We already are," the doctor said. "But we just want to know if you knew anything about this."

Dean pursed his lips. "No. Nothing at all."

A couple hours later, the doctors finally allowed Dean to come inside Sam's room.

"Sammy," Dean whispered when he looked at his brother.

Sam lay peacefully in his hospital bed. The covers were pulled up just over his waist, and a series of bandages were wrapped around his shoulder, upper arm, and chest. The steady beeping from the machine next to his bed told Dean that Sam was going to be fine soon, but the whole setting was still so unnatural.

Dean pulled a chair up to Sam's bed and sat in it backwards. He tried to place a hand on his brother's, but the whole environment just looked so sterile and foreign. Finally, Dean got up and untucked the sheets around the bed. At least now, Sam, champion of the insomniac gymnastics, actually looked like he was just sleeping.

Then he took off his necklace and placed it around Sam's neck. Right now, he needed the protection more.

Dean returned to his chair. Sam was finally safe. They both were. He let out an enormous sigh of relief. He watched the sunrise through Sam's window and suddenly realized how exhausted he was. Dean looked at his watch, and by the time he'd registered it was 5:28AM, his head lay next to Sam's hand and he was fast asleep.

x x x

When Sam awoke, he immediately tried to sit up, but a weight on his right arm and several wires attached to his body prevented him from doing so. He began to panic because he thought he was still in the building with Garmr, but when he began to stir, the weight on his right arm was lifted.

Sam turned his head to discover Dean had fallen asleep on his arm.

"Sam," Dean said, an enormous grin breaking across his face. "How're you feeling?"

Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times to try and get rid of the funny taste on his tongue, but his efforts were fruitless. "Like crap," he said. "But hopefully I don't _look_ like crap." He eyed Dean, whose eyes were still tired and whose hair stuck up in random directions.

Dean smirked. "You should take a look at your own hair before you start staring at mine."

Sam winced as he propped himself up on his elbows and scooted into a sitting position. He made a face as he felt something on his neck. "Dean, why am I wearing your necklace?"

Dean gawked. "Uh…"

Sam realized Dean had put it on him.

"You bastard, you stole my necklace, give it back," Dean quickly muttered. "You're such a pain in the ass."

"Right." Sam smiled as he let Dean take the necklace off his neck.

They sat in silence for a long time before Dean finally asked what they were both trying to avoid. "Do you remember anything from last night? What was Garmr doing to you?"

Sam sighed. "Well, he wasn't our demon, for one. I think he just worked for him. And all the deaths in Manning were him. He said that my visions only worked when he or the demons did something bad, and that's why he was killing all those people. He was luring me out and bringing me here." That part was easy enough to figure out, but Sam knew that wasn't what Dean was wondering about. "And… Dean, it was insane. They did something to me, and not only could I see the future, I could _control_ it." He explained the quarter-flip experiment.

An expression passed across Dean's face, and Sam knew the look all too well. It was fear.

"Yeah. The doc told me about increased levels of dopamine in your brain. So, what else did you see?" Dean asked warily.

"Lots of things," Sam said. "I saw into the future whenever my eyes were open, but I can't remember much because they didn't want me seeing into the future until they needed me to. I remember seeing a lot of you, though. And you were with that vampire—"

"Kate," Dean said. "Yeah, I got her to sniff you out— wait a minute," he paused. "Last night, when you were saying 'the light' and stuff, you were talking about the lamp that hit Garmr and electrocuted him, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "And that's why I kicked you. No offense, but your knife-throwing skills aren't the greatest, so if I'd told you to chuck the machete at the water pipe, you'd have missed completely. In fact, I _know_ you'd have missed. But while I was sitting on the ground, I had a vision, and after I kicked you and the pipe busted open, well, everything unfolded just as I'd seen it in my vision. Well, I'm assuming everything unfolded correctly. I was kind of drifting in and out of consciousness."

"Thank God that demon's a bad shot," Dean murmured.

"Or a good one," Sam said grimly. "After Garmr saw me make the quarter land heads-up all fifty times, he was way more than intrigued. I don't think he'd just kill me so easily after all that. This isn't finished."

Dean scoffed miserably. "It'll never be finished until we finish them."

"I know," Sam said. He looked up, concern in his eyes. "But something's really been bothering me."

"What?" Dean asked.

"My visions show the _future_, right?"

Dean nodded in agreement. "Can you still see the future or something? The doc said he reset your dopamine levels."

"No," Sam shook his head. "I can't still see the future. I mean, no more than I could before, I guess. But what's bothering me is that Kate was in my visions. She was in several angles of the futures I saw." Sam had to stop to explain how different routes of the future worked. "And she was always surrounded by orange for some reason."

Dean almost forgot to breathe as he realized what this meant. He remembered how Kate had said she was only giving the boys a head start. She would eventually come after them again, and Sam was proving that right now. "What was she doing?"

"Not much," Sam answered, straining his memories to remember what he'd seen. "But in almost every angle, she kept talking about a bargain or something, like she was trying to justify herself to someone."

Dean set his face. The bargain had been that she find Sam and he make sure the werewolves were gone. The bargain had been filled, so what was this all about? "Who was she talking to? Other vampires or something? The demon?"

Sam's eyes suddenly became very dark. "No, she was talking to you."

"All right, then. I guess we have our next case," Dean said.

"Kate?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Dean replied, shrugging.

Sam examined his brother for a moment. "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course I'm sure. Why wouldn't I be sure?"

"I don't know," Sam said quietly. "But it looked like you two were friends."

Dean snorted. "You were seeing things, Sammy. Well, of course you were seeing things, but you interpreted your vision wrong. There's no way in hell I'd be _friends_ with her!"

Sam looked at his brother empathetically. "I wasn't talking about the vision," he said, recalling the few memories he had of the night before.

Dean stared back uneasily for a moment before he suddenly plastered a big grin across his face. "Okay! Well, let's see what we can do about checking you out of here," Dean said, getting up and heading for the door.

Sam watched with concern as his brother left the room as quickly as possible.

Dean practically stomped through the hospital, making his way to the front desk. He was confused as hell about everything.

He cursed at himself for going soft. He should've killed Kate as soon as Sam was safe. He'd had several chances, yet he hadn't acted on any of them. Then he remembered that Sam had said Kate was always surrounded by orange in his visions, and Dean finally realized what Sam meant. The vampires lived in the woods, so the orange must've been the leaves changing colors in autumn.

_Autumn_, Dean thought to himself. It was late summer now, but that still gave him plenty of time to prepare. For what? He had no idea. But of one thing he was certain. He would never let anything jeopardize the Winchester family ever again.

**Author's Note:** And that's it! My very first Supernatural chapter-fic is complete! And yes, I purposely left room for a sequel... I'm gonna wait and see if more people begin to read this fic, and if I think enough people like it, I might try to write up a sequel. :)

Anyway, thanks so much to everyone who read this, reviewed it, and kept me going! I hope you enjoyed the fic and will recommend my fic to other Supernatural fic readers. Until next time, kids!


End file.
